Fadnavis, his government and the bureaucracy

In the biggest ever bureaucratic reshuffle effected since he took over, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis last week transferred 73 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers in one stroke

In the biggest ever bureaucratic reshuffle effected since he took over, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis last week transferred 73 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers in one stroke.

While doing so, he changed the secretaries heading key departments such as finance, rural development, public works department (which has grappled with a series of scams from the Congress-NCP era), water resources (governs irrigation), environment, food and civil supplies (which will have to handle the crucial issue of rising prices) as well as crucial infrastructure agencies such as City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), which is building the Navi Mumbai international airport and Maharashtra Industries Development Corporation (MIDC), which is expected to play an important role in realising Fadnavis’ Make in Maharashtra initiative.

While doing so, Fadnavis has handpicked certain officers for the jobs, who will be important in the performance of his government. It also seems Fadnavis has accepted the demands made by some of his colleagues to change the secretaries of their departments. For instance, Food and civil supplies minister Girish Bapat was not getting along well with Deepak Kapoor. Apparently, Bapat and Kapoor had different opinions over the handling of soaring prices of commodities such as pulses. Kapoor, who has earned a reputation in his stints with transport and food and civil supplies departments, will now handle the recently created skills development department. Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar was not exactly happy with finance secretary SK Srivastava. Fadnavis has now changed the entire top administrative team of the finance department, leaving no room for complaint by Mungantiwar — one of the heavyweights in his cabinet. Officers such as Ashish Kumar Singh and Bhushan Gagrani, who have a reputation of being efficient administrators, will handle key infrastructure assignments such as public works department and Cidco respectively.

It seems the CM has now tried to resolve this issue.

While there could be some exceptions, IAS officers in the Maharashtra cadre are known for being professional in their work. Instead of worrying about the labels on officers, Fadnavis has gone by their ability and past performance. At the same time, by resorting to a massive reshuffle at one go (which is not common in the state administration), he has made it clear to the bureaucracy that there is a change in the political regime in the state.

Now, the onus will be on the politicians running the government to show that they can deliver. The impression is that only Fadnavis and a couple of his ministers are handling their jobs properly, while the rest are still struggling with their departments. With each passing day, there is less time in hand for them to perform because the expectations from the government are quite high.