Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to set aside the proposed amendments to the IAS (Cadre) rules, 1954, saying the proposals were “draconian” and against the spirit of ”cooperative federalism”.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Soren said that shortage in central ministries can be addressed ‘from the pool of other 30-odd All India Services’ the Centre has at its disposal.
The Union government has proposed an amendment to IAS (Cadre) rules, which will enable it to post IAS officers on central deputation, bypassing reservations of state governments.
“The Jharkhand government had received a proposal from the Centre seeking certain amendments in the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 and the state already communicated its disagreement on it,” the letter read. “In the meantime, we have received another draft of the proposed amendments in the cadre rules of All India Services which, prima facie, appear to be more draconian than the previous proposal,” Soren added in the letter.
“I feel constrained to write this letter to express my strong reservations and apprehensions about these proposed amendments and strongly urge you to bury it at this stage only,” the letter read.
{{/usCountry}}“I feel constrained to write this letter to express my strong reservations and apprehensions about these proposed amendments and strongly urge you to bury it at this stage only,” the letter read.
{{/usCountry}}The development after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote a second letter to Modi, asking him to withdraw the proposed changes to IAS (Cadre) rules. Banerjee said it goes against the “foundation of our federal policy and the basic structure of Constitutional scheme”. Earlier, Banerjee had written to the Prime Minister on January 13, urging him to not go ahead with the proposal.
In his letter, Soren also said the move is likely to further strain the already stressed Centre-state relations. “It has immense potential to be misused for harassment of officers and vendetta politics against the state government.”
“If the objective is to meet the shortage of officers, it is not a desirable move because the state government exclusively get the services of only three category of officers i.e. IAS, IPS & IFS whereas the Government of India gets a huge pool of officers from a poool of more than 30-odd other All India Services for which the UPSC males recommendations without fail. The shortage in ministries could be easily met from this pool of officers,” Soren said.
The CM reiterated that Jharkhand currently has only 140 IAS officers (65%) working in the state against the sanctioned strength of 215, while 95 IPS officers (64%) are working the affairs of Jharkhand against the sanctioned strength of 149.