Jaipur (03.10.2022): The Department of Personnel of Rajasthan is grappling with the shortage of IAS officers. On September 30, 2022, when two IAS officers Ravi Shankar Srivastava and K B Pandey retired, additional charge of their posts had to be given to another IAS officer. The total count of officers holding additional charge has increased to more than 15.
The situation of shortage of IAS officers is that in the 9 months of the current year so far, 18 officers retired while by December 3, more IAS officers will retire. The DoP is not in a position to replace the retiring officers, so it finds it easy and simple to give additional charge. This year, 4 IAS officers have gone abroad on study leave. Finding an alternative to these officers has also become a problem for the DoP.
The fact is that the strength of the sanctioned cadre of IAS of Rajasthan is basically less. This, as on today, is 313 and 248 officers are working against this. Last week, Rajasthan’s Principal Secretary DoP Hemant Gera raised this issue in the meeting of DoP secretaries of all the States, called by the Centre in New Delhi.
Rajya Sabha MP Kirori Lal Meena also met Union Personnel Minister Jitendra Singh. He had demanded that the cadre strength of IAS of Rajasthan should be increased from 313 to 365. Rajasthan has the lowest number of IAS officers as compared to other 5 States. In Haryana, 77 IAS officers are approved per 1 crore population. The cadre strength of IAS is 77 in Punjab, 49 in Tamil Nadu, 60 in Chhattisgarh and 52 in Madhya Pradesh whereas in Rajasthan, only 39 IAS officers are sanctioned against the population of 1 crore.
