‘Hostile’ city government forced bureaucrats to pick Central jobs

In a rare instance, as many as two dozen IAS officers responsible for serving in Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and other Union Territories, including the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have been put on Central deputation. Normally, only half-a-dozen officers of the AGMUT cadre are placed on Central deputation. A majority of the officer serving in various capacities in different wings of the BJP-led government at the Centre are the ones who had earlier held key positions in the AAP government.

One of the key reasons why most of these officers are at the Centre is primarily being attributed to the hostile conditions created by the AAP government against the bureaucrats over a host of issues in the past several months. There have been instances when some senior bureaucrats had even raised fingers at chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet colleagues for interfering in their day-to-day decision making.

There is also an open war going on between Players building and Raj Niwas over the transfer and posting of several senior bureaucrats.

While Mr Kejriwal’s cabinet colleagues had been directing their bureaucrats not to route their files through Raj Niwas, Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung had on several occasions termed the orders issued by the AAP government null and void.

Things had come to such a pass in the past that the government had even sealed the office of a senior bureaucrat for not following the instructions of the CM and issuing orders as per the instructions of the LG. At one point of time, the home department was being headed by two senior bureaucrats — one reporting to the CM and the other to the L-G.

Insiders say that many bureaucrats are unwilling to work with the AAP administration. As a result, the Kejriwal government has been banking more on a handful of bureaucrats, which is said to have affected the day-to-day policy and decision making in the city.

The bureaucrats who are on Central deputation are 1985 batch IAS officer M.M. Kutty, who is serving as the joint secretary in the ministry of environment, Mr J.K. Dadool of 1983 batch is the additional secretary in the ministry of commerce, Mr Arun Goel (1985) is the joint secretary in the ministry of revenue, Ms Reena Ray (1984) is with the embassy of Belgium, Mr Dharmendra Sharma (1988) is the joint secretary in the National Defence College, Mr G. Nagendra Kumar (1989) is joint secretary in the ministry of agriculture, Ms Debashree Mukherjee (1991) is the joint secretary in the PMO, Mr Manish Kumar Gupta (1991) is joint secretary in the ministry of labour, Mr Prashant Goyal (1990) is joint secretary in the finance department, Ms Varsha Joshi (1995) is joint secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy and Mr Santosh Dattatraya Vaidya (1998) is director in the PMO, among others.