Facing an acute shortage of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, the Himachal government has requested the DoPT for repatriation of its half a dozen officers on the central deputation. The government has so far recalled six IAS officials of Himachal cadre, including Manoj Kumar (Addl secretary, MoHUA); Kondru Sanjay Murthy (JS, I&B Ministry); Kamlesh Kumar Pant (CVO, NHAI); Rajneesh (JS, Commerce);  Subhasheesh Panda (JS, Dept of Food and Public Distribution) and Amitabh Awasthi (Dr Director Administration, PGIMER, Chandigarh). Himachal has total cadre strength of 147 IAS and as many as 32 of them are on different deputations with the central government. Of the remaining cadre strength, around 15 IAS officers are posted as sub-divisional magistrates in different subdivisions. The DoPT is yet to approve the request to enhance the state's cadre strength from 147 to 155. The state government has been feeling the pinch of the shortage of IAS officers to the point that the previous state government led by Virbhadra Singh had, besides writing to the Centre, had sent letters to different state governments for deputing IAS officers in the cadre post in the state.