UP IAS bureaucracy lost its sheen ?? Right or wrong ??

Lucknow: Once a senior IAS officer had commented the induction in Uttar Pradesh cadre was nothing short of 'baptism by fire'. It proved correct when the entire 1985-batch of UP was wiped out and only two officers of 1984-batch got empanelled for the post of Secretary, Government of India.

This, in fact, has come for a huge shock for one of the most celebrated cadres of the country which had always been revered for quality of officers it had but at the same time it had been accused of politicisation. In the recent selection for the Secretary at the Centre, the Cabinet Committee on Appointments, following the process of 360-profiling, gave nod to only two officers Anant Kumar Singh and Durga Shankar Mishra of 1984-batch of UP cadre while did not find a single officer from 1985-batch eligible.

The 1984-batch officers of UP who were rejected by the committee included rather high-profile Sanjay Agarwal, Anup Chandra Pandey, batch topper Lalit Verma, Kunwar Arvind Singh Deo, Shambhu Nath Shukla and Nepal Singh Ravi. The nine1985-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers to get rejected included Prabhat Kumar, R K Tiwari, Bhupendra Singh, Deepak Trivedi, P K Mohanti, Shalini Prasad, Mohd Ifthekharuddin, Anita Bhatnagar Jain and Gurdeep Singh.

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Earlier, same thing had taken place with 1983-batch UP IAS officers when barring the present Chief Secretary Rahul Bhatnagar and Rajiv Kapoor with Arun Kumar Sinha for equivalent post, all other officers including Rajiv Kumar (convicted by CBI in Noida land allotment case), Chanchal Kumar Tiwari, Sadakant, Hariraj Kishore, Sanjiv Saran and Vireshwar Kumar were not found eligible for the post of Secretary at the Centre.

What is 360-profiling?

It was Narendra Modi regime which decided to apply some stringent norms namely 360-profiling to select the IAS officers for the senior and important posts at the Centre. In this, the committee takes into account the opinions of senior and juniors, general perception about the officers, his or her image , in general and clearance of CBI, IB and Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC).

Dissatisfied lot

The process has not amused the affected officers as well as other ones who feel it is too late in he career when you are suddenly told that your journey as an IAS officer has already reached the high point.

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A senior officer on the condition of anonymity told newstrack.com that it was most unfair that after putting in 30-32 years in the service, you are condemned like this. He also complains of lack of transparency in the process.

On the flip side, another officer, not affected by this, said that if the officer is not found fit for the Centre, he should be judged by the same yardstick in the state as well. Generally speaking, it has been seen as Modi-style to put IAS bureaucracy under control.