Six months after R A Mashelkar retired as its Director General, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) still hasn’t found a replacement for him, prompting the Ministry of Science and Technology to send out a Cabinet note asking for complete control over the selection procedure for such senior scientific posts.

“We are facing certain problems in the appointment of directors and trying to correct processes which will smoothen the functioning of the department,” Minister of Science and Technology, Kapil Sibal, told The Indian Express.

More than half a dozen of CSIR’s laboratories are also without full-time directors.

The note questions the usefulness of the appointment and promotion of senior scientists being vetted by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), as is the case with officers of the rank of joint secretary and above in other departments.

The ministry feels this results in unnecessary delays in important appointments and undermines research work.

Sibal said he is not asking for special treatment for CSIR: “The appointments still have to be approved by the Cabinet. We are only saying that it need not be routed through the DoPT.”

The note argues that appointments to director-level positions in the laboratories, and of senior scientists elsewhere in the department, should be done internally as was done till a few years back.