FIU-IND asks for applications from retired officials for 6 vacancies of consultants

THE Financial Intelligence Unit —India (FIU-IND), an intelligence unit under the ministry of finance that gets engaged in safeguarding the nation’s financial system from the abuses of money laundering, terror-financing and other economic offences, has issued an advertisement for recruiting consultants on contract basis. The monthly payment for the recruits, as mentioned in the circular dated April 16, 2019, will be…

DoPT invites retired PAs and PS for temporary posts

RETIRED personal assistants (PAs) and private secretaries (PS) who worked in central services, have an opportunity now to work as stenographers in the department of personnel and training (DoPT). In a circular dated February 21, GoI said, the appointments would initially be for a period of six months. “The monthly remuneration will be paid on the basis of…

6 Vacancies: Corporate affairs ministry asks for applications from retired government officers

THE ministry of corporate affairs has invited applications from retired and willing government servants as consultants in the ministry. The monthly remuneration, according to the circular issued on December 20, will be the last drawn salary minus the pension plus dearness allowance. The consultants won’t, however, be given any perks, allowance or even leave. The consultants are needed at the following level:

Pension hike for pre-2006 retiree babus

GOOD news for those babus, who have retired before 2006. Now, IAS and IPS officers, who have retired before 2006, will get a hike in pension, apart from the arrears. This follows the Centre doing away with a provision of 33-years of service for earning full pension.
The move comes after the Department of Pensions and Pensioners Welfare decided that the revised consolidated pension of pre-2006...

Govt to form panel of retired officers to undertake departmental inquiries against delinquent officials

THE government has decided to create a pool of retired officers with a mandate to conduct departmental inquiries against delinquent officials, the government said in an office memorandum (OM) on Thursday. The officers, who have retired either from the Central government ministries, departments or from the public sector undertakings (PSUs), would be eligible to apply for this pool or panel. Once selected, an inquiry officer will get a maximum of…

Secretary Anup K Pujari calls up every employee of his ministry on the day of retirement; find out why

IN THE last two days of every month, this GoI secretary and 1980 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer does something unusual! Amid his busy schedule, he would pick up the phone and call each and every employee of his ministry retiring on that month (A government employee retires on the last day of the month even if she turns 60 years any day between the 2nd and the last day of the month). But, why does this bureaucrat call up the retiring lot? What does he ask them? Meet union secretary of mines Dr Anup K Pujari. Towards the end of the month, he first gets a…

CVC to empanel 6 to 8 former bureaucrats to assist the Commission

BY January 19, retired secretary or additional secretary-level bureaucrats, former PSU chairmen and whole time directors etc. are expected to apply for the position of experts in Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). About 8 such vacancies have arisen. The experts will help the Commission in reconsidering proposals of sanction for prosecution of officers. The remuneration at Rs 5,000 is at per sitting basis. Here are the eligibility and other terms and conditions:

Is there an innovative idea on how to engage 50,000 government personnel who retire every year?

IN PENSIONERS' portal, a government of India website, one can post innovative ideas to help the department of pension and pensioners’ welfare to perform better and with more transparency. But are there any thoughts on how to meaningfully engage 50,000 government officials from central ministries and departments who retire every year? In January this year, i.e. four months before the new government came to power, a number of secretaries, social entrepreneurs…

P Chidambaram opposes bureaucrats’ second innings in politics, but why?

No Politics Please, We Are Babus!

AT A time when more and more retired IAS and IPS offers are contesting the current Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress leader and Union finance minister P Chidambaram has aired his views against such a trend, arguing that it may set a dangerous precedence. The seasoned lawyer-turned politician who has opted out of the fray in favour of his son Karti Chidambaram this time, said that the Constitution…

Pension to double once a retired bureaucrat turns 100; full text of amended pension rules

A RETIRED bureaucrat will receive almost double of his pension amount if he survives 100 years or more, an amended rules of All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958, said. In a notification dated July 12, 2013, the government has made substantial changes to the existing rules, and the new rules will…

Delhi Police asks companies to hire its men at 60; here’s a list of 40 retired cops

WHO says a police officer retires at 60? The Delhi Police’s advertisement tagline says: Talent does not come with an expiry date. In an initiative called Delhi Police Retired Talent, it has appealed organizations to hire their men and women who are “fit and young even at sixty”. In its official website, delhipolice.nic.in, it has given details of 40 policemen including their…

Canada faces a new challenge of ex-bureaucrats grabbing big contracts

1771 Painting Depicting A Canadian Battle

THE trend of retired bureaucrats grabbing high-valued contracts has become a problem in Canada. The Canadian government has now said, any contract worth Canadian dollar of 10,000 or more, or roughly Rs 5.4 lakh, have to be publicly disclosed. The issue cropped up when auditors spotted an instance when a retired public servant, also a pensioner, received a contract of whopping...

Excerpts of SC judgement on information commission; retired babus to lose out

OVER 100 retired bureaucrats across the country will cease to get post-retirement employment after Supreme Court in its recent verdict made it mandatory for Central and State Information Commissions to have at least one judicial member while hearing appeals of information seekers under RTI Act, 2005. A bench comprising justice AK Patnaik and justice S Kumar asked the government to get the RTI Act amended quickly to clear any ambiguity. But bigger question is: will this verdict be later extended to other quasi-judicial bodies like…

Process of weeding out non-performing bureaucrats begins; states too join

IN A bid to weed out non-performing bureaucrats from all India services, the Centre has begun the process of reviewing performance of those officers in IAS, IPS and other allied services, who have completed 15 years of service. The Centre has also asked states to undertake such exercises in six months’ time, according to reports. 
It was on January 31, 2012, the government notified

Govt may bar officers from contesting poll just after quitting service

WITH more and more civil servants including high profile police officers contesting elections just after quitting the service, the government is contemplating to prescribe a “cooling off” period. Currently, a retired government employee has to wait for at least one year before taking up a private sector job unless he takes special permission, but the same rules…

Government agrees to share appraisal dossier with retired officers

Post Retirement...

THE government has changed ruled to allow retired officers to access their Performance Appraisal Report even after two years of one’s retirement. The DoPT in an office memorandum dated April 2, 2012 said ACR (Annual Confidential Reports) /APAR dossier would be handed over to a retired officer if a written request is filed.

The ACRs are kept in store rooms for five years even after an officer retires...

Maharashtra government for stringent laws to tackle retired bureaucrats

THE government of Maharashtra may amend existing laws so as to make retired bureaucrats responsible for mistakes they had committed while in service. According to reports quoting Maharashtra’s urban development minister, the new laws are being planned because several retired bureaucrats manage to skip punishments thanks to the loopholes of existing laws.

According to the existing laws, retired bureaucrats at best lose their pensions. They are not compelled to surrender assets for any loss to the exchequer because of their omissions and commissions while in service. The new laws may also ensure that retired bureaucrats must take government’s permissions before joining any private sector company.

The issue cropped in Maharashtra assembly during the debates on the issue of irregularities allegedly committed by former CIDCO vice president and Managing Director GS Gill. In fact, the state government set up two secretary level committees last year to investigate decisions taken by Gill in the last six months before his retirement.

Also Read

Japan's power corridors jammed by retired babus 

Retired Korean bureaucrats grab posts

Action and Appointments

a) Shiv Prasad Sharma, a 1991 batch MP cadre Indian Forest Service officer has been appointed as director in the department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries under the ministry of agriculture.

b) Rajesh Singh, a 1998 batch Indian Postal Service officer has been appointed as deputy secretary in the department of higher education under the ministry of human resources development.

c) Rashmi Chowdhary, a 1989 batch Indian Railways Personnel Service (IRPS) officer has been appointed as director in the department of higher education under HRD. 

Japan’s power corridor getting jammed by retired bureaucrats

WHAT do you do when aging populace are more than willing to work for more number of years to sustain their quality of life? It may not be felt so much in India, one of the global hubs of young people, but it has already been a huge debate in Japan, at least in government circle.
Some 1,528 senior officers at government-linked organizations are being occupied by a former government official for at least the third successive time from the same ministry or agency, Kyodo News reported quoting a survey of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In fact, as high as 4,916 officials who are working at such government-affiliated organizations are aged 65 or more. The statistics are interesting in the backdrop of the government’s intention to ban in principle the hiring of retired civil servants as senior officials of government-affiliated departments so that recruitment can be open to the public.

Here is one of the interesting comments by one of the readers of the original Kyodo News: “I was reading an excellent article the other day about how lobbyist in the US--a huge chunk of whom are former Senate and House members, boosted by former government agency workers--have managed to almost completely stifle some of the key workings of government in that country. I thought to myself ‘I wonder where all the lobbyists are in Japan’, and now I see they just go by another name--all the ex-bureaucrat employees of those thousands of semi-governmental organizations...”

Any thought for retired Indian bureaucrats?

Missing Appointment files

Have papers related to appointment of senior Gujarat cadre IAS officer Rajiv Gupta as personal secretary to Union textile minister Shankersinh Vaghela in 2004, destroyed? The central information commission (CIC) has questioned as to why all files pertaining to his appointment were missing. Gupta, a 1986 batch IAS, is now the secretary of climate change department in the state. 

Japanese bureaucrats may no longer be able to practise age-old Amakudari; what’s about Indian retired babus?

WITH anti-bureaucrats party Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) registering a landslide victory in the recent Parliamentary polls in the world’s second largest economic power, senior civil servants in Japan are now in a state of nervousness. The DPJ, which has openly declared that it would bring in more elected representatives to fill up top bureaucratic posts, may end the practice of Amakudari, meaning “descent from heaven” under which Japanese senior bureaucrats take up high-profile positions in the private and public sectors after retirement. The practice is increasingly viewed as corrupt as former officials might have given preferential treatment to their would-be employers in securing key government contracts. The practice, which in a diluted form is practised in various countries including in India, is believed to have helped bringing in government expertise to private entities. But thanks to a number of corruption scandals surfaced in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enacted new rules to eradicate amakudari in 2007, but his reforms were termed by critics as toothless. Now DPJ is determined to end this practice. In India too, retired bureaucrats who have worked in ministries such as finance, industry, power and railways are in high demand for taking up plum private sector posts. They have to wait sometime as government regulations don’t allow any retired civil servant taking up a private job within one year of retirement. However, special permissions can be granted if it’s proved that the concerned officer has not handled any file related to his would-be employer during the last three years prior to retirement. The most high profile case of Amakudari in India is that of former finance secretary Ashok Jha who took special permission last year to join as Hyundai India president with a monthly remuneration of about Rs 15 lakh. This is over 15 times of a senior bureaucrat’s salary in India, as even after the implementation of 6th pay Commission recommendations, the cabinet secretary who is the senior-most Indian bureaucrat, receives a gross monthly salary of Rs 80,000! Related stories a) It’s not funny: Japanese bureaucrats get lessons from comedians, posted on June 8, 2009. b) Global cues for Indian Babus: Retired Korean bureaucrats clinch high paying bank jobs, posted on June 10, 2009. c) Japanese bureaucrats face highest ever bonus cuts; Indian babus are still lucky, posted on August 5, 2009. CJI’s office falls under RTI purview: Delhi HC Delhi High Court on Wednesday said that Chief Justice of India was a public authority and is thereby covered under the Right to Information Act (RTI). The Court observed that the information in possession of the CJI is within the purview of the RTI Act and all such information should be disclosed. However, it added that personal information about judges need not be disclosed.

Global cues for Indian Babus: Retired Korean bureaucrats clinch high paying bank jobs

RETIRED bureaucrats with a fair amount of financial exposure are the most sought after candidates to fill up top jobs in Korean banks, a South Korean media report has said. Among 13 commercial banks in the country, eight employ FSS (Financial Supervisory Service) retirees as their standing auditors. The FSS is a quasi-governmental organization that monitors the country's financial organizations. Also, bureaucrats with experiences in a pure government arm, Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), are also considered for high paying banking jobs in the country, a report published in Korean Times has said. Critics have, however, claimed that the banks’ strategy to woo former bureaucrats for top auditors’ posts is mainly to lobby the iron-fisted government financial bodies there.

Babu Blogger’s Take: In India, retired bureaucrats are in demand in infrastructure sector though the most high profile instance of a retired IAS clinching a plum private sector post is of former industry and finance secretary Ashok Jha’s joining as President of Hyundai India last year with an annual pay package of about Rs 1.8 cr. Maths, Stats & Maya From the time Uttar Pradesh chief minister Ms Mayawati’s political maths went grossly wrong during the last Parliamentary polls, she has been just punishing the bureaucrats by randomly transferring them, and at times demoting them too. Here are Maya’s vital stats, as was published in a national daily. When she became chief minister for the first time for 14 days in 1995, around 578 bureaucrats were transferred. In 1997, when she became the CM again for six months, she transferred 777 babus. The third — one year three months 26 days stint in 2002 — claimed 970 civil servants. From May 2007 till date, UP chief minister has reshuffled more than 1,000 officials, including IAS, IPS and PCS officers. In UP, it’s all about illusion --- Maya.