State to have 11 Addl Chief Secys

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 30

Making the administration top heavy, the Cabinet today gave its nod for increasing the number of Additional Chief Secretaries (ACS) in the state from the present eight to 11, with the cadre strength of the state being a mere 147.

The Cabinet which met here today gave approval for upgrade of three more posts of Principal Secretary to ACS rank. Three officers, Srikant Baldi, SKBS Negi and Manisha Nanda, belonging to the 1985 batch, will be promoted to ACS once the Department of Personnel issues the notification.

Besides the three officers given the benefit today, the other ACS are Deepak Sanan, Ajay Mittal, Vineet Chawdhry, Upma Chawdhry, VC Pharka, Tarun Sridhar, Narinder Chauhan and PC Dhiman. All of them are posted in Shimla.

Besides this, there are eight other officers, much senior to the 1985 batch, who are serving in Delhi. Whenever any one of them returns to the state, he will automatically be given ACS rank.

The officers who are presently serving in Delhi and enjoy perks of ACS include RK Jain, AR Sihag, Bharti Sihag, Ajay Tyagi, BK Aggarwal, Arvind Mehta and Sanjeev Gupta. As such, the effective strength of IAS officers from HP cadre who are in the ACS rank is 18, making the pyramid upside down.

With a cadre strength of 147, the state is facing acute shortage of officers, especially at the Secretary level. In fact, the state is desperately awaiting the return of IAS officers who are on central deputation or on other international assignments.

The state government has not entertained request from several IAS officers for proceeding on central deputation. In fact, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has directed the Personnel Department to ensure that all those who are on leave return immediately on completion of tenure and no one is granted extension.

The only officer to return from a three-year World Bank stint is Anuradha Thakur. She has joined here as Secretary, Social Justice and Empowerment. Arvind Mehta has returned, but proceeded on leave.

Earlier requests made by three ACS-rank officers, Vineet Chawdhry, Upma Chawdhry and Tarun Sridhar, were turned down by the Chief Minister. The request of Principal Secretary (Finance) Srikant Baldi for taking up an assignment in his home state of Rajasthan is pending.

Many of the Additional Chief Secretaries are looking after four or five important portfolios while some have been forced to cool their heels with practically no work as they are perceived to be close to the previous BJP regime.