A new challenge for Watal

Known for its reliance on babus, the Modi sarkar is reluctant to lose the services of a trusted babu who retires. Former finance secretary Ratan Watal, who ended his two-month extended tenure in April, has now been reappointed as principal adviser for social sector in the Niti Aayog for a three-year term.

It’s interesting to note that the government has chosen a retired babu to ramp up and run the new age Niti Aayog. Mr Watal joins another trusted Modi aide Amitabh Kant, who is CEO of the national think tank, which in its former avatar as Planning Commission prepared five-year plans. Mr Kant, Mr Watal and other policy wonks will now prepare a 15-year vision document called the National Development Agenda.

Since 2014, when the BJP came to power, Mr Watal proved not only an able IAS officer in the finance ministry, but also played a crucial liaison role for the Modi sarkar with J&K where the BJP is in coalition with the PDP. Mr Watal oversaw smooth flow of funds for implementing Mr Modi’s development package for the state. Now Mr Watal will work on creating a blueprint for India’s long-term development goals.

IAS losing ground The babu corridors are being buffeted by strong winds of change. Barely a week after we learned that the Centre has given marching orders to 33 officers of the IRS for poor performance, the Modi sarkar has seen one more action that could make the IAS officers rather more nervous.

In the backdrop of the growing clamour from various Group A services for equal opportunities, the Modi sarkar has appointed 15 new joint secretaries in a major mid-level reshuffle, and only a tiny four of whom, are IAS officers. The rest are from other Group A services such as the IPS and the IRS and what’s worse — a host of other services.

The biggest change in the current reshuffle is the shifting of acting chief of Natgrid, senior IAS officer Rajiv Arora to the labour and employment ministry, as joint secretary. Mr Arora has been appointed in place of G. Venugopal Reddy who has been sent back to his parent railways cadre, before completion of his tenure.

An indication of the government’s thinking can be gleaned from the transfer of IAS officer Rajesh Aggarwal from the department of financial services to the ministry of tribal affairs! For decades, the IAS who have always considered themselves a cut above other services, have cornered all the important positions even those which may require a subject specialist. Now that hegemony is slowly being eroded, and they have every reason to be nervous!

Whose policy is it anyway Dilli is wondering whether the HRD ministry will manage to quell a potential storm over the new education policy it itself had tasked a committee headed by former Cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian. The committee submitted a 250-page policy document two weeks ago, but the ministry has refused to accept that it has received the document.

The frisson of excitement about the new policy however is that Mr Subramanian wrote a three-page letter to HRD minister Smriti Irani stating that he has decided to go public with the report, without indicating when he would choose to do so. Mr Subramanian apparently urged Ms Irani to make the committee’s report public, ostensibly for wider and informed discussion, before finalising the policy.

While the HRD babus and the minister are tight-lipped about the report, clearly by threatening to go public Mr Subramanian is trying to ensure that the public gets to debate the education policy before it is finalised. Now that Mr Subramanian has thrown the gauntlet, it remains to be seen whether the ministry will acquiesce to the expert committee’s wish of going public or simply finalise and push through the critical policy without inputs from various stakeholders.