The curious case of Raj IAS awaiting central deputation!

Jaipur: It seems that for senior IAS Sudhansh Pant, deputation to Delhi is still a faraway dream. On Saturday, the Central Government appointed 15 Secretaries, however, pant was not one of them. This has shocked Rajasthan’s bureaucracy since only last month, Sudhansh Pant was impanelled for the post of Secretary. Thus it was thought that as and when the list of appointment of Secretaries is issued, Pant’s name would be in it. This 1991 batch IAS officer, with an ACS rank seniority, has an image of a meritorious, brilliant, hard-working, and a result- oriented officer. Keeping this in mind, the Union Government had called Pant on special deputation to work during the covid crisis. Before this, he had served a four-year term in central deputation and thus it is believed that Pant is well versed with the working of Central Government and even the officials of the Centre are also well versed with Pant’s working. And thus it is obvious that bureaucracy would question as to why was Pant not called to Delhi? As an officer, Pant is, what the bureaucracy calls an outstanding officer, ‘Delhi Material’. However, in Rajasthan, he has had three transfers only in the last six months with the recent being a ‘cold bag’ posting at HCM-RIPA.

Almost similar is the case with Sandeep Verma, who too the State Government gave NOC to go for deputation to the post of Additional Secretary. Last month the Central Government appointed Additional Secretaries but Sandeep’s name was not in it. Similarly, three IAS from Rajasthan - Praveen Gupta, Ajitabh Sharma and Subir Kumar - have been provided NOC by the Centre for the post of Joint Secretary. Several months have passed since the NOC was provided and in fact, it has been two years since Praveen Gupta was given the NOC, but the trio still awaits a call from the Centre. The case of 1995 batch IAS Praveen Gupta is quite typical as another of his batchmate, IAS Rajeev Singh, has been appointed as Additional Secretary in Centre. On the other hand, the 2008 batch IAS Muktanand Agrawal is also awaiting a posting to the position of Director in the Centre after he was given NOC by the State Govt last month. Thus, half a dozen IAS officers of Rajasthan cadre are still on deputation and although all posts were shuffled by the Centre, yet officials from Rajasthan have been left out. The reason behind this needs to be found and mulled upon. A piece of disturbing news for a 2006 batch IAS has also surfaced as Gaurav Goyal has not been impanelled for the post of Joint Secretary whereas, Goyal is a talented and hard -working officer. But despite this, no one knew where he fell short.