New Delhi (14.03.2022): Out of the 43 joint secretaries and additional secretaries appointed last month by the Centre, two-thirds were non-IAS officers and even those from the allied services are now manning key posts in the middle rung of the central bureaucracy. Things have reached a stage where some of the ministries have no IAS officers as a joint secretaries.

DoPT data shows that over the last decade - from 2011 to 2020 - the share of all IAS officers in the central deputation at the level of deputy secretaries and above under the Central Staffing Scheme (CSS) had dropped to as low as 34 percent before going up. This has meant officers from forest, postal, railways, ordnance factories and even information services are driving policymaking. The acute shortage of IAS officers coming for central deputation has prompted the government to review rules, prompting a volley of protest from the states, particularly those ruled by opposition parties.