Dilip Cherian | Another panel set up to sort Central secretariat service promotions

The protests earlier this year by Central government employees who comprise the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) over delayed promotions and career-related issues have had an effect. The department of personnel and training (DoPT) has reportedly constituted a committee to undertake the fourth cadre restructuring of the CSS. The panel will examine the current and future career progression of the CSS officers and suggest remedial measures to streamline the service.

According to sources, the four-member committee will be led by the establishment officer and additional secretary, DoPT, and will have a joint secretary each from the DoPT and the department of expenditure. A deputy secretary of DoPT will be the member secretary. The panel will also study the encadrement of posts of autonomous bodies and statutory organisations, and the relevance of the recommendations of the third restructuring panel, which have not been implemented yet. So, essentially, a panel to replace a previous panel with the same task. How delightfully bureaucratic!

Further, the committee is also mandated to review the present training needs and examine any other issue that is referred to it by the cadre controlling authority of CSS and the central secretariat clerical services.

Centre denies Kerala’s plea for more DGP posts

The ongoing rivalry between the Kerala government and the Centre and the state’s governor Arif Mohammed Khan adds a new chapter all too often. Even as Arif and the Pinarayi Vijayan government slug it out on various points of contention, the Centre remains a big challenge for the state government.

The most recent episode is the Centre turning down Kerala’s demand to sanction more posts of the director general of police (DGP). At present, the state has four posts of DGO rank but wants the Centre’s nod for two more.

Sources have informed DKB that the state’s demand to increase the number of DGP posts arose after the Supreme Court ruled that once a person is appointed the head of state police, he should not be removed from the post for the next two years. Currently, in Kerala the state police chief and vigilance chief hold DGP ranks. While jails and fire services too have DGPs, they are not from the IPS.

The incumbent police chief Anil Kant is slated to continue in the post until June next year. This had delayed the promotion of senior additional director general of police Anandakrishnan, who became eligible to be posted in the DGP rank 10 months ago. After him, K. Padmakumar posted at the state police HQ become eligible for promotion to DGP.

The state government argued that the IAS cadre has eight posts that are equal to the DGP, but the Centre clearly did not buy this argument.

Babus who have Yogi’s ear

After the loss, even if temporary, of former additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has moved quickly to show that he has always had more than one arrow in his quiver. So, even as his favourite Awasthi is back in an advisory role, the chief minister has ensured that Team Yogi remains in charge.

Besides Mr Awasthi, Yogi relies on the administrative talents of about half-a-dozen officers to run his “double-engine” government. Clearly, the most influential among these is Shashi Prakash Goyal, additional secretary to the chief minister, and who, sources have reported to DKB, weighs in on every file that reaches the chief minister’s office. Another key CMO official is principal secretary Sanjay Prasad, who took over most of Mr Awasthi’s erstwhile domain, except information and PR.

Chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra has the additional “advantage” of being backed by the Centre, say sources. This is why, it is widely believed, that Mr Mishra was named chief secretary and given an extension in service, barely two days before retirement. Meanwhile, Yogi’s “chosen one” D.S. Chauhan is acting director general of police (DGP) even as the Centre and UPSC continue to search for a full-time DGP. But Mr Chauhan, who is also director general of intelligence and director of vigilance, has the CM’s ear when it comes to issues pertaining to law and order.

This, then, is the team that oversees the UP government’s flagship welfare projects as well as the “muscular policing” which keep it in the news.