IAS-IRS Tug-of-War: Readers' comments on Indian civil service reforms

HAVE a close look at this photo. Shot at an Income-Tax function held in a Delhi suburb just ahead of the B-day, finance minister P Chidambaram was flanked by two senior officers, revenue secretary Sumit Bose, IAS and CBDT chairperson Poonam Kishore Saxena, IRS. As someone says, a smile can cause boundaries to melt, hearts to warm up, and distances to reduce. BoI here presents some of the best viewpoints on its earlier post: “4,200 IRS officers, an IAS boss & half cooked platter of facts”...

Whispers In Corridors: Succession Planning for defence secretary begins

Sumit Bose

Shashi Kant Sharma, a 1976 batch Bihar cadre IAS, will retire as defence secretary in July next year, but many in the corridors have zeroed in who could be the next defence secretary, and why? The trend of appointing a finance person in defence ministry may continue as the priority of the top babu in the South Block now is to anchor procurement worth billions of dollars which needs high quality financial skills.

So, who is the next finance ministry bureaucrat who could be asked to move from North to South Block in July next year? He is none other than Madhya Pradesh cadre…

Batchmates’ Budget: How officials ensure that Budget does not get leaked

Gopalan (L), Gujral, Bose (R). FM's adviser Omita Paul is seen

IT’S a rare occasion that preparations of this general Budget were anchored by three IAS batch-mates. Call it a mere coincidence. RS Gujral, finance secretary in charge of revenue department, Sumit Bose, expenditure secretary and R Gopalan, secretary, department of economic affairs (DEA) are in fact 1976 batch IAS. The other two North Block secretaries, financial services secretary DK Mittal and disinvestment secretary Mohammad Haleem Khan are both one batch junior to them.

The job of preparing the Budget that begins in November every year is handled by DEA. But departments like revenue and expenditure give critical inputs to the document and become part and parcel of the entire Budget making process. The finance minister can undertake changes in the document till it goes for printing six days before it’s to be presented in Parliament. As high degree of secrecy is maintained, the Budget document is printed at the press located in North Block’s basement itself.

Most officers working in finance ministry have no idea whether there will be any tax cut or increase in excise duties! Also, a secretary in charge of one department does not know what’s in store for issues related to other departments. The one person who reads the Budget from top to bottom is the DEA joint secretary in charge of the Budget. He along with a few junior officials stay round the clock in North Block at least for the last 10 days. They need to ensure that nothing gets leaked before it’s presented in Parliament on the B-Day. The guys working in the printing press are not allowed to go home when the document is being printed. Packed lunch and dinner, brought from outside, are served there.

But should there be such an aura of secrecy when many policy announcements and even hikes of petroleum prices are done outside the Budget? Once the Direct Tax Code is in place, there will be no surprise tax front in any future Budget. The reality is that in days to come, the Budget may no longer be such a high secret affair!

RS Gujral pipes R Gopalan, Sumit Bose; becomes new finance secretary

Gujral (R) was reportedly sidelined by CP Joshi (L)

NINETEEN days after Sunil Mitra retired as finance secretary, the North Block finally found its new man at the helms --- 1976 batch Haryana cadre IAS, RS Gujral. Till recently, he was not even in the reckoning to clinch the coveted North Block post. But with his appointment as the new finance secretary, Gujral will now be the boss of his two outstanding batch-mates, DEA secretary R Gopalan and expenditure secretary Sumit Bose, both come under finance ministry. Gujral will continue to handle the revenue department which oversees the work of CBDT and CBEC.

A Humphery fellow from US, Gujral was the Director General of Foreign Trade and had closely worked with Kamal Nath when the latter was the minister of commerce and industry during the last UPA government. When Nath became the minister for road transport and highways, he brought Gujral to his ministry. But Gujral did not get along with new road transport and highways minister CP Joshi over the ministry’s dealings with Planning Commission.

Only three weeks ago, he moved into the finance ministry as revenue secretary. But Gujral’s seniority over his batch-mates Gopalan and Bose helped him getting the finance secretary’s post. Sumit Bose still has a chance to be finance secretary three years from now, as he will retire only in March, 2014, but Gopalan will retire in April, 2012. Gujral will have a fairly long period as finance secretary as he will retire in November 2013.

MHA clarifies on 1981 batch IPS JV Ramudu

After JV Ramudu, a 1981 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS, was made a member of Special Investigation Team (SIT), it was now found that Ramudu would not be a part of the panel because of a surgery that he had sometime ago. The surgery requires constant medical check-ups. The SIT was constituted by Gujarat High Court to investigate the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and others.

Here is the clarification of the ministry of home affairs: “The medical condition of Shri J.V. Ramudu was brought to the notice of the Ministry of Home Affairs only after his name had been approved by the High Court and Home Ministry had to approach the Hon’ble High Court to nominate another officer from a fresh panel of three names, which has since been accepted by the High Court. Neither the State Government of Andhra Pradesh nor the officer himself had brought to the notice of MHA the inability of the officer to be a part of SIT, although his name had been indicated in the High Court’s order in May, 2011”.

Finance ministry restricts foreign junkets, buying of new vehicles for bureaucrats

NO more buying of SX4, Ford Fiesta for Central government babus! In a strict finance ministry order dated July 11, 2011, the “purchase of vehicles including those against condemnation of the existing vehicles, will not be permitted.” The order signed by new expenditure secretary Sumit Bose however exempted operational requirements of defence forces, Central paramilitary forces and security related organizations.

The finance ministry has further put restrictions on foreign junkets and foreign study at government expenses. The order said that the higher level officers are discouraged to travel abroad, and “officers of the appropriate level dealing with the subject are sponsored.”

Here are the sets of restrictions in government’s new austerity drive meant mainly for bureaucrats.

* It would be the responsibility of the secretary of each ministry or department to ensure that foreign travel is restricted to most necessary.

* Ministries or departments would lay down quarterly ceilings based on the annual budget under foreign expenses which they may not exceed during the quarter in question.

* Where travel is unavoidable, it will be ensured that officers of the appropriate level dealing with the subject are sponsored instead of those at higher levels. The size of delegation and the duration of visit will be kept to absolute minimum.

* Proposals for participation in study tours, workshops, conferences, seminars, presentations at government costs will not be entertained except those that are fully funded by sponsoring agencies.

* There will be total ban on creation of Plan and Non-Plan posts, except for new organizations which are set up during the course of the current year based on already approved schemes.

Action and Appointments

The government has launched a drive to fill up backlog of vacancies of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs and Persons with Disabilities by March 31, 2012. Two earlier drives launched in 2008 and 2009 respectively enabled various offices to fill up about 26750 such vacancies. 

Why will Sumit Bose become next finance secretary, and not R Gopalan?

WITH the appointment of disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose as the ODS in the department of expenditure under the finance ministry, the decks are cleared for this 1976 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS to become India’s next finance secretary. As Bose will retire only in March, 2014, he will have a long-haul in the North Block’s power centre.

Bose will first become the expenditure secretary by the end of this month when the incumbent and Bose’s two batch senior officer of the same cadre Sushama Nath’s extension ends.

But how will then Sumit Bose become India’s finance secretary? Here is how the situation works in his favour.

According to conventions, the senior most officer among secretaries of all departments of the finance ministry is designated as finance secretary. The departments in finance ministry include the department of economic affairs, department of financial services, department of revenue, department of expenditure and department of disinvestment. And with revenue secretary and 1975 batch IAS Sunil Mitra retiring in the end of the next month, there will be no officer senior to Bose provided the government does not bring in a 1975 batch officer as revenue secretary. But that’s a rare possibility.

But how will then Bose become finance secretary and not his batch-mate and one of FM’s favourite officers R Gopalan, currently working as secretary in the department of economic affairs? In the merit-cum-seniority list of 1976 batch, Bose is marginally above Gopalan and hence Bose will be designated as the finance secretary.

Had commerce secretary and 1975 batch IAS Rahul Khullar become the DEA secretary, the situation would have been different. Khullar would have been the finance secretary by the simple measure of seniority.

The only impediment in Bose becoming finance secretary now is the induction of any of the three officers, S Sundareshan, Uday Kumar Varma and Anita Chaudhary, as revenue secretary. All these three officers are Bose’s batch-mates, but are senior to him in the merit-cum-seniority list. But that argument is only for theoretical purpose as none of those officers has a chance to become revenue secretary and thereby finance secretary.

Read
Profile of Sumit Bose
Bio-data of R Gopalan

Action and Appointments

a) Ms S Radha Chauhan, a 1988 batch UP cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the department of school education and literacy.

b) The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved proposal for premature repatriation of Sada Kant, a 1983 batch UP cadre IAS presently joint secretary in the ministry of home affairs to his parent cadre of Uttar Pradesh.

Quite Revealing: Indian civil servants’ assets may come under RTI, MP turns first state to give nod

WITH Madhya Pradesh government agreeing to bring assets of bureaucrats in public domain following a recent order of Central Information Commission, the process of RTI Raj prevailing over bureaucrats’ age-old doctrine of secretary has entered the final stage. If assets of 290 IAS officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre have already been brought under the ambit of RTI, it’s not far from forcing civil servants of other cadres as well, to publicly disclose their assets just like their political masters who by law disclose their assets while filing nominations for any Indian election.

Social activist Ajay Dubey has already asked the income tax department to give information on tax returns filed by about IAS officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre during the past five years, media reports said. In fact, bureaucracy in Madhya Pradesh suffered a major set back when a recent Income-Tax raid in the residence of Arvind Kumar Joshi and Tinoo Joshi, both 1979 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS, recovered a whopping Rs 3.1 crore in cash, jewellery and documents of properties disproportionate to their known sources of income. Both the officers have subsequently been suspended, and investigations are continuing. (Read: Tinoo and Arvind Joshi’s date with Delhi’s key ministries)

Significantly, civil servants routinely file their asset disclosures, but those gather dust in official files and have not been made public so far. (Read: Officers’ submission of immovable properties). Also, I-T department does not hand over personal details of any citizens including bureaucrats. But a recent order of the Central Information Commission, pronounced by Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said that disclosure of information such as assets of a public servant cannot be construed as an invasion on the privacy of an individual. The order said, “...If people who aspire to be public servants must declare their property details, it is only logical that the details of assets of those who are public servants must be considered to be disclosable”.

The prominent Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officers now include expenditure secretary Ms Sushama Nath (1974 batch), school education secretary Ms Anshu Vaish (1975 batch), disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose (1976 batch), (Read: Profile of Sumit Bose) MP chief secretary Avani Vaish (1975 batch) (Read: Profile of Avani Vaish), special secretary in defence production Ajoy Acharya (1976 batch), central provident fund commissioner Uday Kumar Varma (who is also a special secretary in Information and Broadcasting ministry till March 31, 2010), Director of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Padamvir Singh (1977 batch), joint secretary in PMO R Gopalakrishnan (1979 batch) and DG Doordarshan Ms Aruna Sharma (1982 batch) among others.

Also Read: 

Govt should create RTI implementation cell 

RTI Raj: Prez' advice to bureaucrats

Disclosure of file notings under RTI

Challenge of disclosure of assets

Action and Appointments

a) Chhattisgarh government on Wednesday suspended senior agriculture secretary Babulal Agrawal (Read: The IAS with 220 bank accounts) whose premises were raided by Income-Tax Department. The case was handed over to Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

b) The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the proposal for premature repatriation of Aditi Mehta, a 1979 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS, presently working as joint secretary in the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (ICNCA) to her parent cadre.

c) The ACC has approved the proposal of premature repatriation of DN Srivastava, a 1984 batch IFS officer and joint secretary in the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to his parent cadre.

d) Neeraj Kumar Gupta, a 1982 batch UP cadre IAS, presently joint secretary in commerce ministry has been appointed as Executive Director, India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO).

e) V Bhaskar, a 1981 batch AP cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP).

f) SC Sinha, a 1975 batch Haryana cadre IPS, has been appointed as Director General of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). He is currently working as a Special Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Profile of new disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose, 1976 batch MP cadre IAS

Profile of Sumit Bose, IAS

Name: Sumit Bose

Cadre and Batch: 1976 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre

Date of Birth: March 29, 1954

Place of Domicile: West Bengal

Mother Tongue: Bengali

Educational Qualifications

MA in history

MSc in Social Policy Planning from London School of Economics

Major Postings

a) SDO in Cadre, (From August 1, 1978 to July 1, 1979)

b) Additional Collector, Gwalior district

(From July 1, 1980 to April 1, 1981)

c) Special Assistant to Chief Minister (From April 1, 1981 to April 1, 1982)

d) Collector, Sidhi district, (From April 1, 1982 to July 1, 1983)

Collector, Rewa district, (From July 1, 1983 to May 1, 1984)

e) Under Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Company Affairs, New Delhi

(From May 1, 1984 to July 1, 1985)

f) Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Company Affairs, New Delhi

(From July 1, 1985 to May 1, 1988)

g) Consultant, World Bank, (From June 1, 1988 to July 1, 1988)

h) Collector, Gwalior district, (From August 1, 1988 to September 1, 1989)

i) Joint Secretary, Director Level, Local Self Government and Panchayati Raj (From September 1, 1989 to October 1, 1989)

j) Collector, Bhopal district, (From January 1, 1990 to May 1, 1990)

k) Additional Secretary to Chief Minister (Director level)

(From May 1, 1990 to January 1, 1993)

l) Consultant, Joint Secretary level, UN Dev Programme (UNDP),

(From October 1, 1996 to April 15, 1997)

m) Joint Secretary HRD, New Delhi,

(From July 24, 1998 to July 23, 2003)

n) Principal Secretary, In Cadre, Education Deptt

(From January 5, 2004 to May 13, 2004)

o) OSD, Additional Secretary Equivalent, Ministry of Finance,

(Thirteenth Finance Commission), New Delhi

(From August 20, 2007 to November 19, 2007)

p) Secretary, Additional Secretary Equivalent, Ministry of Finance,

(Thirteenth Finnance Commission), New Delhi

(From November 20, 2007 to November 24, 2009)

q) Secretary, Secretary Equivalent, Thirteenth Finance Commission

New Delhi, (From November 24, 2009---)

Foreign Training Details

i) MSC (Social Planning) in UK for 30 weeks

ii) Short Term consultancy, for 2 weeks in Kenya

Welcome to North Block: Pranab Mukherjee gets Bengal officer Sunil Mitra as new revenue secretary, Sumit Bose for disinvestment

Sunil Mitra, a 1975 batch West Bengal cadre IAS and currently secretary in the department of disinvestment in the ministry of finance, has been appointed as the next revenue secretary in place of PV Bhide, a 1973 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS who is retiring on January 31, 2010. Mr Mitra’s elevation as revenue secretary is happening at a time when finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s team has been working hard on the Budget proposals to be presented on February 26, and India is targeting to achieve Rs 4 lakh crore only as direct tax collection. Significantly, the current revenue secretary Mr Bhide has not been very popular among senior IRS officers and the rift between the super taxmen in the North Block and revenue secretary came out quite in open in many occasions including during the adoption of the new direct tax code.

Meanwhile, another Bengali babu Sumit Bose, a 1976 batch MP cadre IAS and presently secretary, 13th Finance Commission, has been appointed as secretary in the department of disinvestment in the ministry of finance in place of Sunil Mitra.

Profile: New revenue secretary Sunil Mitra

In Picture: The camel contingent at the rehearsal for the Beating the Retreat Ceremony, near North Block in New Delhi on January 21.

Other Appointments

a) BK Sinha, a 1975 batch Bihar cadre IAS, presently director general, national institute of rural development, has been appointment as secretary in department of rural development in place of Ms Rita Sharma, a 1974 batch UP cadre IAS, who is retiring on January 31, 2010.

b) Mathew C Kunnamkal, a 1976 batch Kerala cadre IAS, presently special secretary and financial adviser in the department of chemicals and petrochemicals, has been appointed as Director General, National Institute of Rural Development in place of BK Sinha, a 1975 batch Bihar cadre IAS.

Lieutenant General VK Singh will be India’s next Army chief

Lt Gen VK Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC, presently GOC-in-C, Eastern Command has been appointed the next chief of the Army staff in the rank of General with effect from March 31, 2010 in place of General Deepak Kapoor.

Lt General VK Singh was commissioned into the Rajput Regiment on June 14, 1970. He participated in the 1971 war and IPKF operations against LTTE militants in Sri Lanka. He is presently serving as the Eastern Army Commander.

Besides being an ‘Honours Graduate’ of the US Army Infantry School, Georgia, USA, Lt Gen Singh studied at the Defence Services Staff College, the Army War College and the US Army War College, Carlisle.

He is married to Mrs Bharati and they have two daughters, the elder one is married to an Army officer. The younger daughter is working in the corporate sector.

Shiv Shankar Menon to have a status of a minister of state

The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shiv Shankar Menon, a retired IFS of 1972 batch as the National Security Adviser in place of MK Narayanan who is moving into West Bengal Raj Bhawan. The man who superseded over a dozen officers to become the country’s foreign secretary in September 2006, is back in the South Block, this time with a status of a minister of state.