‘LUCKY 11’ RAS TO SOON BECOME IAS AS DoP SHOOTS LETTER TO UPSC FOR SELECTION BOARD MEETING!

Jaipur: There is good news for the senior RAS officials, who are hoping to get promoted to the IAS cadre. The Department of Personnel has sent a request letter to the Union government (UPSC) to call a Selection Board’s meeting, the date of which may be given to the DoP anytime.

The promotions are to be done against the vacancy of December 2023 and under normal circumstances, this request letter should have been sent in January or February, but since the ACR of five RAS officers, who fall in the eligibility zone, was not received, hence, the matter was pending. Now, the DoP has sent the request letter with a panel of requisite names under new provisions where ACR is not needed.

11 RAS have to be promoted against a vacancy of 11. While 8 vacancies are owing to the retirement of promotee IAS under the regular system; there are an extra 3 vacancies, two of which have occurred due to the voluntary retirement of IAS Pawan Arora and Antar Singh Nehra, while the remaining one vacancy is owing to promotee IAS KC Meena’s shifting to the RPSC.

The 11 lucky officials, who will become IAS according to seniority, are Shaheen Ali Khan, Akash Tomar, Arun Kumar Hasija, Maneesh Goyal, AP Sharma, Matadeen Meena, Ramswaroop Meena, HS Barhath, RK Sharma and Purushottam Sharma. Interestingly, standing at the 12 spot in seniority, Deva Ram Saini, may also have become IAS since there was a chance that Tarachand Meena would take VRS, but the DoP approved Meena’s VRS in Feb 2024 instead of Dec 2023. Thus, this vacancy would be counted in 2024 and not in 2023.

Notably, the RAS cadre fills up 33% of the cadre strength of IAS and under this rule, as of now, a total of 103 RAS can become IAS. But among these 103, 15 % of seats are reserved for officers from other state services (16 seats at present).

RAS officers seek IAS cadre increase and end to reservation in other state services. HC has ordered an interim stay on the matter related to other services and the RAS Association has filed an appeal in the High Court.