New Delhi: The rush of senior bureaucrats from the Centre to states continues with the government clearing three more officers, including Additional Secretary in Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Shatrughna Singh, for premature repatriation to their home cadre.
Singh, a 1983 batch IAS officer, has been repatriated to his parent Uttarakhand cadre. He had come on deputation to the Centre in 2010 at the level of Joint Secretary and was promoted as Additional Secretary. It gave him a tenure of seven years at the Centre which would have ended in 2017.
However, the Department of Personnel and Training issued an order last night, saying that the Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the premature repatriation of Singh without assigning any reason.
The officer was in 2013 named as one of the two bureaucrats who had attended the controversial meeting called by the then Law Minister Ashwani Kumar to discuss a CBI probe report on Coalgate before it was submitted in the Supreme Court. Singh was posted in the Prime Minister’s Office.
More than 60 IAS and IPS officers have either availed the option of returning to their parent cadre or have been sent back after the new government took over in May last year.
There are also very few takers in the IAS and IPS for Central deputation.
Only five officers from the IAS and four from IPS have offered to go on central deputation, but there is a considerable rush of group A officers from Indian Ordnance Factory Service (10), Indian Statistical Service (16) and Indian Defence Services of Engineers (9).
In another order issued last night, a 1983 batch IAS officer from Haryana Keshni Anand Arora was sent back to her parent cadre prematurely. Her central deputation was to end in 2018. She had earlier been ordered to take over as Additional Secretary in NITI Aayog but it was cancelled last night.
Speculation was rife over the reason for repatriation of Pravir Kumar, a 1982 batch IAS officer. Kumar, Secretary, Inter State Council Secretariat, was prematurely repatriated to his parent cadre Uttar Pradesh. Kumar was appointed barely a fortnight ago on August 28. It is being said one of his relatives was a member of the inner circle of a senior Congress leader.