New Delhi (09.01.2023): Ever since the NaMo administration took over the reign of the New Delhi establishment, the empanelment irrespective of rank/level, service and batch became an issue of fear, uncertainty, luck, chance and obviously a matter of competence and credence.
Amid a series of disruptive interventions including the introduction of a 360-degree method, the empanelment and postings have become not only unpredictable but sometimes a matter of destiny too. Not only this, the frequency of empanelment on yearly basis has increased and the off-take of non-IAS officers for empanelment especially at JS-level too has taken an upward curve, as believed in common.
In its endeavour to equip its readers with insightful analysis, Indianmandarins has taken the task of matching dots and finding out the patterns pertaining to the empanelment, posting including others.
From this very perspective, the year 2022 offers an array of patterns and trends to understand and decode.
The year 2022 witnessed altogether nine rounds of empanelment comprising 59 sets of notifications/orders. The trail of empanelment began on January 01, 2022, with the issuance of eight sets of orders in a single day and closed on October 29, 2022, coincidentally with an equal number of 08 sets of empanelment orders.
Altogether 210 officers were empanelled for holding Joint Secretary (JS) and JS equivalent posts in the Government of India. Out of these 210 officers, 105 IAS officers, 04 IPS officers and 25 IFoS made it to the JS list. It means that out of 210 officers, 135 were All India Service (IAS, IPS and IFoS) officers. In terms of share, IFoS got the highest number of empanelments after IAS while Indian Police Service got a very little share with only four officers making it to the list.
Though 13 CSS cadre officers were empanelled in the year 2022, Indian Telecom Service (ITS) with 12 empanelments clearly had an edge over others. Telecom Service is too small in terms of strength yet it got a bigger share of the pie. What had won Indian Telecom Service (ITS) a bigger share was something that needed to be explored.
Now, coming to the eight services under Railways (2023 onwards its one; IRMS) and the relatively bigger size of the cadres, all put together at 11, stands the number and share smaller in JS-level empanelment. It may be underlined that among 11 empanelled officers two each were from IRAS, IRSME and IRSEE whereas four were from IRTS and one belonged to IRPS.
Coming to the chief revenue earner i.e. Indian Revenue Service (IRS) six each were empanelled from IRS Income Tax (IRS IT), IRS Customs & Indirect Taxes (IRS CIT).
Six officers were empanelled from Indian Audit & Accounts Service (IA&AS) received whereas five each were empanelled from Indian Postal Service (IPoS), Indian Information Service and Indian Ordnance Factory Service (IOFS). Three Indian Economic Service (IES) officers and two each from the Indian Defence Estates Service (IDES) & Central Power Engineering Service (CPES) were empanelled for holding Joint Secretary level posts in the Government of India.
Looking at the distribution pattern, one thing is clear that, complete JS-level empanelment was occupied by only 19 different services. Services like IDAS, IP&TA&FS, Indian Trade Service and others were left out of the consideration list in 2022.
(Continued............. Part-II on 10.01.2023)
(By Rakesh Ranjan)
