Friday, April 10, 2015

IAS officer Prashant who is “missing” in Washington DC deemed to have resigned

Prashant, 50, does not write his family name. A West Bengal cadre IAS officer of 1998 batch, he was “missing” in action. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the cadre controlling authority of the IAS officers, had no clue, at least officially, where Prashant has been in the recent years after he completed a foreign posting in Washington DC in 2010. He went to US in August 2009 as a…
senior disaster risk management specialist at the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. But he failed to return to India and join back the government the following year. The DoPT probably used informal channels to find out his joining a private sector job before processing his file for deemed resignation. A notification dated March 31, 2015, says as follows: “Shri Prashant, a member of the Indian Administrative Service, borne on the Cadre of (WB:1988) is deemed to have resigned from the Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect in terms of rule 7(2)(c) of the All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955.”
An MA in history, Prashant originally hails from Bihar and got the West Bengal cadre. In late 1990s, he was district magistrate in North Dinajpur district. Later, he was director first in the department of revenue and then in the department of economic affairs (DEA) – both under the ministry of finance.
In 2006, he went to US for a 26-week-long training programme.
In 2008-09, he was the chief vigilance officer (CVO) in Oil India Ltd before joining in Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery in Washington.
Prashant is, however, not the only officer who has gone abroad and chosen greener pasture.
LV Nilesh, a 1991 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS, for example, was on unauthorized leave since June 2001. A post graduate in computer science, Nilesh was on study leave between 1991 and 2001. But he had never joined the service, according to records available with DoPT. On July 12, 2012, the government notified that Nilesh is “deemed to have resigned from IAS” and sent the notification to the manager, Government of India press for publication. When BoI published the news, an anonymous reader posted a comment saying that Nilesh had joined Microsoft in US way back.
But the question arises how come the Government of India in this era of technology took 12 years to figure out that the officer was still on an unauthorized leave, and actions needed to be taken under 7(2) of the All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955. Also, 1999 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS Anil Yadav is deemed to have resigned from IAS.

3 comments:

  1. The government of India should make it an offence and take action against such officers who first take unauthorised leave and disappear for green pastures.So much money is spent on training and development and they disappear.

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  2. The officers should have opted for VRS as one would be eligible for it on completion of 20 years of service. Career change aspirations can be genuine, in private the churn out is about 20%, it is much less in central govt Group A services. The officers could have honourable exit by VRS than the ignominious way of getting sacked.

    The senior officers / departments should accept and process VRS requests more liberal way so that such officers could follow right path of exit

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  3. Mr.Ranadeep sudan is another IAS officer who went for deputation to worldbank did not return back to his parent ap cader since 2003. he sen t a letyter to govt to approve his resignation but the reasons not known.. his is still continuing in civil list what a tragedy..??

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