IAS cadre review in Delhi today

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 22

A crucial meeting to review the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) Himachal cadre would be held in New Delhi tomorrow to determine the cadre strength. The review meeting, which used to be held periodically, had not been held for several years and the state is likely to seek expansion of the cadre.

At present, the strength of the cadre is 109 and nearly 25 per cent officers are either on Central deputation or serving outside. Further, 19 officers would be retiring by December 2019, including five senior officers superannuating during the current year (2018).

The officers retiring this year include Ajay Mittal, Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training ( February 2018); Vineet Chowdhary, Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh; Bharti Sihag, Secretary, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers (December 2018); Arun Kumar Sharma, Secretary Education, Himachal Government (December 2018) and Bir Singh Thakur, Director, Land Records (February 2018).

Besides, 15 IAS officers, including Upma Chowdhary, director, LBSNAA, Mussoorie, Asha Ram Sihag, chairman, National Authority, Chemical Weapons Convention, former Himachal Chief Secretary VC Pharka, Additional chief secretaries Tarun Shridhar, Srikant Baldi and Manisha Nanda would retire in 2019.

The appointment of additional chief secretaries and principal secretaries may also be discussed during the meeting as previous Congress government had appointed 11 additional chief secretaries at one point of time and even today there are five additional chief secretaries and one Advisor to the government of 1983 batch.

Chief Secretary, Vineet Chowdhary, who left for Delhi to attend the meeting, said, it was a routine meeting for cadre review which has not been conducted for the past more than five years. The cadre strength is likely to go up marginally by three to five officers, sources in the government said.