After shortlisting hundreds of candidates to fill the vacancies of Special Director, Additional Director, Joint Director and Dy Director & Asstt Director in the Enforcement Directorate, the PMO has got the CVC meeting postponed thrice for the reasons best known to it. Indianmandarins had reported on July 11, 2016, that about 25 applicants were shortlisted for a Special Director post, 09 for Additional Director post and about 40 were to be considered for 11 Joint Director level posts. In addition; several dozens of Dy Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors are also to be appointed. It may be noted that the Enforcement Directorate has been ailing for want of manpower for years. Currently, it is said to be functioning with a bare strength of approx 700 personnel of all ranks versus the sanctioned strength of 2,064. The Directorate is also acutely short of staff. Reportedly, there are 1386 vacancies in ED against sanctioned strength of 2064. This has been badly undermining its performance as one of the principal instruments of the government to carry out anti-money laundering operations. The staff deficit of 67.15 percent means that it is neither able to investigate thoroughly the cases referred to it, nor is it able to make legally foolproof the cases where investigations have been completed.