Babus’ post-retirement jobs may have embargo

The central government’s bid to check senior bureaucrats’ conflict of interest by increasing the cooling period to join a private company to five years after retirement has left the Indian Administrative Service officers in a tizzy.

Updated on: Mar 6, 2011, 21:40:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The central government’s bid to check senior bureaucrats’ conflict of interest by increasing the cooling period to join a private company to five years after retirement has left the Indian Administrative Service officers in a tizzy.

Many senior IAS officers, who are either on the verge of retiring or have got extension from the government, have opposed the move calling it “unfair”.

In the recent past, some secretary level officials took plump post-retirement jobs with companies dealing in the sector, whose in-charge they were in the government. Many other were appointed to regulatory bodies or committees dealing with the sectors they headed in their previous assignment.

A former telecom secretary had joined as a consultant with a group lobbying for telecom companies, now accused in the 2G scam. Another had joined a broadcasters federation after retiring as Information and Broadcasting secretary. Some retired Indian Forest Service officials have joined companies whose forest clearances are held up in the environment ministry.

To clean the muck, the UPA government has drafted a Civil Services Bill, where it plans to have a separate section on “integrity and avoidance of conflict of interest” of the bureaucrats.

What has troubled the bureaucrats the most is the clause that debars them from joining for five years, a private sector or a public sector company, where they have a direct conflict of interest.

“It violates one's freedom to work," said a secretary level IAS officer. According to the officer, if such a provision has to be there, the government should provide an option of re-employment for bureacrats in a public sector company, a board or a commission for a bureaucrat once they retire.

“No where such a restriction has been imposed on retirement of civil servants,” the secretary-level officer said.

Along with serving officers, the government also wants to impose ethical governance on those in regulatory bodies and statutory commissions, which have become parking lot for senior-most retired bureaucrats.

In absence of a “substantial” and “enforceable” code of ethics, the regulatory bodies are also being questioned for corruption. The second Administrative Reforms Commission had recommended a code of ethics for regulators, which the government accepted.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has conducted a study on ambit of the code but its final framework is still under discussion as some regulatory bodies has opposing it in the present form.

This resistance has delayed the government's response to increasing concern over conflict of interest of bureaucrats, especially after the 2G scam.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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