Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrashekhar a one-year extension, putting paid to the prospects of the promotion of officers from more than two IAS batches. Papers in this regard had already moved to competent authorities for approval, official sources said.
The extension would mean end of race for 1972 and 1973 batch IAS officers. This is causing serious heartburn in bureaucratic circles, especially as all of Chandrashekhar’s recent moves had indicated that he was vacating his post. He is already on an extension and when he finally retires, he will have put in a four-year term as cabinet secretary, unprecedented in recent times.
The race, when it finally narrowed down, was between 1972-batch Kerala cadre officer, Urban Development Secretary M Ramachandran, and 1973-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla. The extent of play of business houses seemed to enjoy in the run-up to the decision appears to have forced the PM’s hand in sticking to the tried and trusted.
Chawla was fifth in his batch, while Ramachandran, though the topper of his batch, will retire by the end of June. 1973-batch Kerala cadre IAS officer P J Thomas, who is telecommunication secretary, was also in the race, but could move to the Election Commission. Chawla and Thomas will be retiring in January 2011.
The big question bureaucrats are asking themselves is who will succeed Chandrashekhar in June 2011. By then, current executive director to the World Bank and officer on special duty to then Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi, Pulok Chatterji, a 1974-batch officer from the UP cadre, will be back in India for a posting.
Successive governments in recent times, led by both Congress and BJP, had agreed that the senior-most bureaucrat in the country must be given a fixed tenure to ensure impartiality. So, no matter how many days he had before retirement, it was decided that once appointed a cabinet secretary, he must get a full two-year term.
This, it was thought, would end the practice of granting extensions that introduced an element of arbitrariness in the system and made a cabinet secretary pliant.
Although all bureaucrats praise the functioning of K M Chandrashekhar without reservation, many are asking why the government did not choose a successor to him.
