Inter-cadre deputation of IAS officers

The Government of Assam must be congratulated for having taken a very bold step of halting the increasing tendency of inter-cadre deputation of IAS officers for the next five years. This has been reportedly done because of an acute shortage of middle-level officers in the state. As this newspaper has reported on the front page on Sunday, there is a tendency among a section of IAS officers belonging to the Assam and Meghalaya cadre, most of them hailing from other states of the country, to seek deputation very frequently to other cadres for reasons best known to them. While the Government of India had allotted the officers of different state cadres with a definite purpose in view and keeping in view the interest of each state, there have been examples of some IAS officers of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre remaining away from the two states (Assam and Meghalaya are a joint cadre for the IAS and IPS) on deputation for up to 12 years at a stretch, managing by some way or the other the powers that be. There are instances of officers allotted to the Assam-Meghalaya cadre returning to their allotted state only for a few months and then flying back either to their state of origin or to some department in the Central government. There are several instances of some such officers coming back to Assam and Meghalaya only when they get top posts based on their seniority. What happens in the process is that they lose track of things in the allotted state, become unfamiliar with the burning issues of the state, mostly remain a stranger to the officers and other employees in the state government and even fail to understand the local language which they are supposed to know after being allotted to a particular state. What is happening on the ground is that due to the acute shortage of middle-level IAS officers in Assam and Meghalaya, one IAS officer has been compelled to handle several departments simultaneously. Given the fact that the present government has embarked upon the task of implementing several ambitious schemes and projects, as also that it has to make up for the backlog caused due to the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020-21, the State Personnel (A) Department on December 15 has issued a notification saying that in the context of shortage of middle-level IAS officers serving in the Government of Assam, no further proposals for inter-cadre deputation shall be considered for the next five years or until further order. As has been reported by this newspaper today, the guidelines of the Government of India says that "All India services lady officers allotted to a state cadre in the Northeastern region may be allowed to go on inter-cadre deputation including her home state only after completion of six years of actual service in the Northeastern region. In the case of male officers, they have to render nine-year service in the Northeast." The guidelines also clearly spell out that only proposals for inter-cadre deputation received through the proper channel along with the consent of the parent cadre of the officer would be entertained by the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India. It is a very significant move. Though the IAS officers (as also the IPS officers) are said to have a very powerful nationwide lobby, which, it is often said, can even pull down a government, a state like Assam cannot afford to suffer on the development front because officers want to go on deputation.