Dilli Ka Babu: Premier assignment

Amitabh Kant, secretary in the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), has been appointed full-time CEO of Niti Aayog, the organisation which has replaced the erstwhile Nehruvian Planning Commission. Clearly, the Modi sarkar is unwilling to part ways with the 1980-batch Indian Administrative Service officer who is due to retire next month. He will now take over his new assignment, one of the many pivotal jobs in the government, once his current tenure ends.

That Mr Kant has become indispensable to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is by now an open secret. He was at the helm of the “Make in India” initiative, which was rolled out recently, and in his current assignment he is overseeing the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project.

Alongside, he has also been involved in the Start-Up India initiative. Known as a financial and marketing whiz, he will now move from the powerful purely-economic role to one that requires political dialogue at the government’s premier think tank. There is a feeling that one year after it was set up replacing the Planning Commission, the Niti Aayog is still to make its presence felt in policymaking. Mr Kant will be expected to get it moving.

IPS and the rest

The Union home ministry has frowned on the trend in Punjab to appoint promotee Punjab Police Service (PPS) officers to head various police districts in the state, which are otherwise earmarked for appointment of Indian Police Service personnel. The Centre says that appointing non-IPS officers to cadre posts is violation of rules, though the state government continues to stoutly defend its policy.

The policy, of course, is a throwback to the era of militancy in Punjab, and the Akali Dal government of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal is backing it, claiming that the promotee officers, from the Punjab Police Service, are highly experienced and capable. At present, all of the state’s eight districts bordering Pakistan do not have a direct recruited IPS officer posted there. These positions are being held by either promotee IPS officers or those from the state police service. In the light of the terrorist attack in Pathankot, and earlier in Gurdaspur, in which many feel that the state police leadership was found wanting, this issue is now critical. At least the Centre believes so.

Another import from Gujarat

It’s another sign that Gujarat babus, even former ones, have a special affinity with the Modi sarkar. Retired Gujarat-cadre Indian Administrative Service officer Devender Kumar Sikri is an amazing choice for chairman of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the national regulator for fair trade practices. He has joined many babus from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state who are now serving at the Centre.

Though Mr Sikri retired in 2013 as secretary of Gujarat justice department, sources say that Mr Modi was keen to utilise his services since the seasoned babu served in various assignments in Gujarat as well as New Delhi. Mr Sikri won the coveted appointment aga-inst some tough competition from, among others, former World Trade Organisation deputy director-general Harsha Vardhana Singh, former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Subir Gokarn, former infor-mation and broadcasting secretary Bimal Julka, and CCI members including M.S. Sahoo and Augustine Peter.