Second innings

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ignored serving bureaucrats to appoint ex-Indian Administrative Service officer Parameswaran Iyer to spearhead the Swachh Bharat mission for a period of two years. Mr Iyer, a 1981-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, took voluntary retirement in 2009 and joined the World Bank as a water and sanitation specialist. Sources say that Mr Iyer has been brought in to prop up the Swachh Bharat campaign which is seen to be flagging following the unexpected voluntary retirement of Vijay Laxmi Joshi, secretary, ministry of water and sanitation, in November last year. For the past couple of months the position was held by rural development secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra on ad hoc basis.

Mr Mohapatra is a dynamo, but he was burdened with lots on his plate as he had a giant ministry to run.

When Mr Iyer was in the government, he developed expertise in the field, which he has used well in his international assignments, and is now expected to bring it to the mission in his second innings.

The move has also reopened the debate on the need to appoint specialists for key government initiatives. While the Mr Modi obviously is all for bringing in professionals, the babus are unlikely to be happy about the development, seeing in it an attempt to clip their wings, even though it’s one of their own.

Central Bureau of vacancies The nation’s premier investigative agency, currently investigating more than 1,000 cases, many of which are headline-grabbing scams, is sadly facing a severe staff crunch. While its workload is increasing, its ability to perform is handicapped due to its depleted staff strength, say sources, who naturally don’t want to be quoted.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has a serious deficit of officials at almost every level, but, most critically, it has only 45 investigating officers, usually of superintendent of police rank, instead of the sanctioned 119 posts. Similarly, at the deputy inspector-general level there are currently 17 vacancies and 30 vacancies at the additional SP level. There is a similar paucity of legal officers and public prosecutors. When he took over as CBI director just about a year ago, Anil Sinha had reportedly set out his plan to refurbish the battered image of the agency, labelled “the caged parrot” by none other than the Supreme Court. But whatever makeover Mr Sinha has planned, it is unlikely to fructify unless he manages to get close to the sanctioned strength of personnel, at the very least.

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