Bureaucrats in Chhatisgarh disillusioned

By Aarti Dhar

RAIPUR, MARCH 25. All is not well in the bureaucratic set-up of Chhatisgarh. Discontent is simmering among officers of the Civil Services here over ``deliberate'' discrepancies in the cadre allocation for the new State which, they claim, had not only deprived the State of its rightful strength of officers but also affected over 100 bureaucrats.

The erroneous calculations, the officers allege, was done to accommodate a few resourceful bureaucrats who, otherwise, would have been allocated the Chhatisgarh cadre. Many of the affected IAS officers had even aired their grievance to the Union Ministry of Personnel. ``I have no problem working in Chhatisgarh, but I have a right to point out that I have been wronged,'' says Ms. Richa Sharma, Collector of Bastar. She is among the many who have been compulsorily granted the Chhatisgarh cadre.

According to the guidelines followed for allocation of All India Services officers who were to be divided between Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, of a total of 396 officers, the former was to get 296 and the latter 100. However, since the actual strength of the officers in M.P. was 408, it meant that the parent State was to have 305 and the newly carved out Chhatisgarh about 103. Instead, Chhatisgarh has been allocated only 93 officers, which is 10 less than its deserving strength.

The strength of Indian Administrative Services (IAS) direct recruit officers was fixed as 77 for Chhatisgarh. This was to be apportioned one-third and two-thirds between `insiders' (those belonging to the State) and the `outsiders' (those from outside the State). Thus, 51 direct recruit `outsiders' were to be allocated to Chhatisgarh, but a calculation error made this 52.

The calculation was done on the basis that M.P. had 304 direct recruit officers against the sanctioned strength of 276. Correspondingly, Chhatisgarh was to get 77 direct recruit officers as against the sanctioned strength of 70.

Similarly, the requisite strength of `outsider' direct recruit officers for Chhatisgarh has been kept at two-third by the guidelines which works out to be 51.33, rounded off to 51. Following the same pattern, the `outsider' allocation of officers under the SC/ST was to be 10 and OBC one.

Hence, the number of `outsider' direct recruit officers of the State should have been 40 and in order to work out the roster end points, the correct proportion would have been 40 divided by 186 where the latter is the total number of `outsider' direct recruit officers of undivided State.

Going by the same formula, the roster of `outsider' general category officers to the new State should have been 46 but it has only 40. Again, of the 49 SC/ST, 6 OBC and 186 general category `outsider' direct recruit officers of M.P., 10 SC/ST, 1 OBC and 40 general category `outsider' direct recruit officers were to be given to Chhatisgarh as per the formula, according to which the reserved category ratio for both the States was to be the same.

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