Say promotions ordered by cabinet ‘a pick and choose’ method
Srinagar: The recent promotions and transfers ordered by the State cabinet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has raised eye-brows with some senior IAS officers crying foul by stating that the government has adopted pick and choose approach by promoting junior officer to top posts.
KNS quoting unnamed sources said in a report that in Wednesdays cabinet decision, a joiner IAS officer was preferred on key positing while the state based senior IAS officers were sidelined or given the less important positions. Expressing dissatisfaction they alleged that IAS officers of less than 13 years of experience have been promoted and given coveted posts.
When you sideline the state-based senior IAS officers, you are naturally disempowering them and this disempowerment would obviously breed disenchantment and disappointment, it quoted an IAS officer and former bureaucrat as saying.
The former bureaucrat said that Kashmir Administrative Service is a unique phenomenon in the world. In this service, you would find officers from varied ethnic backgrounds and cultural mixes. Everyone is well-versed with the problems that the state faces. So engaging them to treat these problems is the best medicine one can think of, and this would ensure a fine balance between different ethnicities in Jammu and Kashmir and would also bring down the feeling of alienation and discrimination, if at all it exists, he said.
Previous coalition government taking some of the bold decisions and starting the trend of giving reigns of the state administration in the hands of local officers and made some of the local senior officers as principal secretaries and secretaries so there is no imbalance in the bureaucratic set-up. But today in the present government the balance has again altered, and ruling National conference government has failed to do so which is a matter of concern, said Nayeem Akhtar chief spokesperson of Peoples Democratic party.
Senior National Conference leader and Member Parliament Dr Mehboob Beig said that government should ensure this balance. And the local senior IAS officers must be put at the top. The issue calls for a deeper introspection The local officers understand the local psyche and local environment much better. But then for this, we also need to examine if we have the officers in the pipeline to take up such positions, he said.
Meanwhile senior member in the state cabinet Ali Mohamed Sagar said, that if the IAS officers of valley feel any discrimination let them come forward with a complaint, the state government will definitely look in to that.
Despite several attempts, the Chief Secretary could not be contacted for comments. However when contacted Principal Secretary to Chief Minister B B Vyas said that he cannot comment on it as he is out of the state. KNS
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