PRINCE KUMAR
Ranchi, Jan 22: Chief Minister Hemant Soren has expressed his strong reservations against the proposed amendments in the Cadre Rules of the All India Services through a letter to the Prime Minister of India.
He has requested the PM to reconsider the proposed amendments so that the space for consultation and cooperation designed in the existing framework of the Constitution is not replaced by unilateralism.
Through his letter, the CM said that it is not clear as to what has necessitated this drastic move to bring about these amendments whose only purpose and intent seems to force any officer of All India Services serving in the affairs of the State to come on deputation to Government of India without the consent of the concerned officer and NOC of the State Government.
“If the objective is to meet the shortage of officers serving in the affairs of the Government of India then, I must say, it is not a desirable move because the State Government exclusively get the services of only three categories of officers i.e. IAS, IPS and IFS whereas the Government of India, every year, gets a huge pool of officers from more than 30 odd other All India Services for which UPSC makes recommendations without fail. The shortage in the Ministries of GOI can be easily met from this pool of officers” the letter reads.
“I would like to reiterate that even though recruitments are being made after taking into consideration Central Deputation Reserve (CDR), the fact remains that there is an acute shortage of officers in small cadres like Jharkhand. As of today, only 140 IAS officers (65%) are working in the State against the sanctioned strength of 215. Similarly, only 95 IPS officers (64%) are working in the affairs of the Government of Jharkhand against the sanctioned strength of 149. The situation is no better in respect of the Indian Forest Service cadre. This, you may agree, is not a comfortable scenario” the letter further read.
Mentioning the shortage of officers in the state, CM’ letter also read that many officers are holding more than one charge and the administrative work is suffering due to this acute shortage of officers.
Further, forced removal of officers from this stressed pool will make it extremely difficult for the State Government to discharge its duties as are expected to be performed by any popularly elected government.
Needless to state here that most of the Central Government Schemes and Projects are implemented through State Governments only. The aggravated shortage of officers will hamper the timely implementation of State Government and Central Government projects.
“I would also like to iterate here that the proposed amendments seem to be contrary to the spirit of cooperative federalism and fundamentally they appear to be an attempt to design a lever to exercise indirect control over the officers functioning in the affairs of the State where the political party in power is different from the one at the Centre. These amendments thus strike at the very root of the Constitutional Scheme of federal governance. Undoubtedly this move is likely to further strain the already stressed Centre-State relations. It has immense potential to be misused for harassment of officers and vendetta politics against the State Government,” the letter further read.
