DoP’s ‘additional charge’ experiment ‘hurting’ bureaucratic mgmt!

Jaipur: The transfer list of senior IAS has now become ‘due’ as posts of Secretary, Commissioner or Director in over a dozen departments are lying vacant and the additional charge of these posts has been handed to other officials. Due to this, several officers feel overburdened. This is also causing a worry in the bureaucracy as officials do not carry out the role of ‘additional charge’ responsibly and shy away from taking important decisions. The situation is particularly serious in Water Resources, Planning, Sports and NRHM.

The DoP has accorded additional charge of officials in the transfer lists dated January 16, April 13 and July 4. Instead of providing permanent charge, the DoP chose to add on to the already long list of additional charge and as a result, the number has swelled to a dozen. Additional charge means a temporary arrangement, which will be existing ‘for a time being’. But Naresh Thakral has the charge of Sports for the past six months, while Anand Kumar has Water Resources for 4 months now. The additional charge of Excise Commissioner has been handed over to Commissioner, Sales Tax - Ravi Kumar Surpur. This is also the first time when the charge has been given to an officer, who is from outside Udaipur. There is no dearth in Surpur’s competence, but he has so much work in Commercial Taxes that handing him the responsibility of Excise is a wrong precedent. For the additional charge of Home Secretary, ACS Home had forwarded Bhanu Prakash Yeturu’s desire to DoP. The matter is pending for the past ten days while the post is vacant. Arushi Malik is leaving for study leave from July 22 and Finance Secretary Suresh Gupta will retire on July 29. Both these posts, which will fall vacant soon, are important and it is not practical to hand over their additional charge and hence, a new posting is the order of the day.

In the past, with three IAS transfer lists, the management at senior level has gone wayward, which is a far cry from ‘good governance’. A new transfer list has become the need of the hour and perhaps by July end, the list may be released. By then it is possible that Sudhansh Pant and Sandeep Verma get their calls from New Delhi, however, the DoP will surely have to apply its mind preparing the new list.