Faced with a shortage of officers at senior levels, the government is planning to bring in new talent at the policy-making level through various measures.

A recent meeting of Secretaries from various ministries/departments came up with the suggestion that candidates from various fields could be appointed at the Joint Secretary level after a competitive written exam and personality test/presentation, sources close to the development told BusinessLine .

The meeting of group of ‘Secretaries on Governance’ was chaired by Bhanu Pratap Sharma (Department of Personnel & Training).

Another option is to bring officers on contract for fixed term/ lateral induction into Indian Administrative Service (IAS) at JS level, an official added.

The Secretaries group that included Aruna Sundarajan (Ministry of Electronics & IT); Bhasker Khulbe (Secretary to PM); Prabhas Kumar Jha (Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs) and Snehlata Shrivastava (Department of Justice) expects to come out with a complete action plan by March 2018.

“One of the action points is selection of persons from various fields of governance at JS level through Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The government feels there is structural imbalance in cadres due to abnormally low recruitment during 1995-2002,” said an official.

Such infusion of fresh talent will also bring in a fresh perspective in the policy-making process, the official said.

Meanwhile, according to various other sources in the government, a lot of JS level posts have already been filled with non-IAS officers from other services such as Revenue, Forest, Economic and Posts.

While there are no official estimates, sources said that at least two dozen such appointments have been made in recent years.

Published on March 27, 2017