Acute shortage of bureaucrats impeding administrative work

An acute shortage of IAS officers in Haryana continues to remain in discussion as it affects the functioning of the government as well as administrative work on a large scale. Although the Government of India allotted officers to the state, the scenario remains unchanged as a lot of officials get superannuated every year. According to statistics, around 21 percent of the total sanctioned posts in Haryana are lying vacant, which puts an extra burden on other officials in terms of workload. In this episode, it has come to light that a woman officer, Anupma Anjali, has joined the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) cadre of Haryana after she married Harshit Kumar, an IAS of the 2020 batch of the cadre, as a part of an inter-cadre transfer.

The list of IAS officials allotted to the Haryana cadre includes the names of Renu Sogan, Balpreet Singh, Shantnu Sharma, and Neha Singh. In light of the seriousness of the matter, Chief Minister Manohar Lal has also expressed his concern over the matter several times to the union government in a bid to sort out the issue. Notably, out of the total newly appointed 176 IAS officers, Haryana was allotted six officials last year. Earlier, as many as seven IAS officials were allotted Haryana cadre in 2021. In continuation of this, it is worth mentioning that the state has been allotted a total of 28 IAS in 5 years, while the number of retiring officials every year is much higher, requiring the union government to allot more officials to the state.

According to the information made available by the concerned wing, as many as 4, 4, 8, 5, and 7 officials were allotted Haryana cadre in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. In this series, it is worth stating that as many as 14 officials were superannuated in 2022, and 10 are yet to retire in 2023. Everyone is pretty familiar with the fact that due to a shortage of officers, projects and development work get delayed instead of being completed within the prescribed period. The same officer has to bear the portfolios of many departments simultaneously, and apart from obstructing the work, there is work pressure on the officers as well.

As a result of marriage between IAS, IPS, and IFS officers, according to the guidelines made by the Central Government regarding changes in the state cadre allotted to All India Service Officers, a change in the state cadre originally allotted to the concerned officer can be done, and that officer can be transferred to his wife (or her husband) permanently in the allotted state cadre by the central government.