Rajasthan is facing shortage of IAS officers

The shortage of IAS officers in Rajasthan is increasing day by day. The number of IAS retirees is more than the number of IAS required to run Rajasthan and the number being received. Another IAS retired on Friday. Whereas one officer went on deputation to the center.
Rajasthan has the highest shortage of IAS officers as compared to any other state in the country. In the year 2022, the situation has become even worse. So far this year, 19 IAS officers have retired. And in the next 12 months, 15 more IAS officers will retire. Earlier in the last two decades, this happened in the year 2009, when 15 IAS officers retired in a single year.
The retiring officer is Deepak Nandi, who was the Divisional Commissioner of Kota. On the other hand, IAS Sudhansh Pant is going to get an appointment in Delhi. Pant was the chairman of the pollution board, he will now become the secretary of the shipping ministry. In the last 20 years, Pant is the first officer from the Rajasthan cadre to directly become the Secretary of the Union Ministry.
Rajasthan is the first state in terms of area and the seventh largest state in terms of population. Here the distance between the districts is more. The geographical conditions are such that it is very difficult to run the administrative machinery in remote areas. From Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot himself to former CM Vasundhara Raje, this issue has been raised in front of the Center several times. Recently, Hemant Gera, Principal Secretary of, the Personnel Department, also presented the side of Rajasthan before the Centre. And asked to fulfill the shortage of IAS officers. However, the Center has not given any concrete assurance to them.
There are 313 sanctioned posts of IAS in the Rajasthan Cadre. At present only 248 officers are working in their place. However, now 9 new officers have come, so this number has increased to 259. In the present cadre, 29 IAS officers are working on central deputation, study abroad, and deputation in the service of their home state. Many officers are on leave for five. While in Rajasthan, according to the area and population, a cadre of about 365 IAS officers should be decided.
Due to shortage, each IAS officer is in charge of several departments. Many officers have to handle more than one post. It also affects monitoring, timely completion and better performance of government schemes. The public also does not get the full benefit of these schemes.
In the last decade, the number of posts of IAS officers being allotted in the Rajasthan cadre has been increasing or decreasing. This time the number of 9 officers who have been found in 2022 is the highest in the last three years. In the years 2013, 10, 10 in 2014, 13 in 2015, 10 in 2014, 13 in 2015, 9 in 2016, 10 in 2017, 12 in 2018, 7 in 2019, 6 in 2020 and 6 in 2021 also got IAS posts.
The Central Government has allotted 9 new young Probationer IAS officers in Rajasthan Cadre. All of them are IAS officers of the year 2021 batch. He has completed his training at Lal Bahadur Shastri Training Academy, Mussoorie. These officers include Yaksh Chowdhary, Pritam Kumar, Yasharth Shekhar, Anshu Priya, Saksham Goyal, Divyansh Singh, Shraddha Gom, Mohit Kasania, Bhaisare Shubham Ashok. At present, all of them will be posted on the posts of Assistant Collector or its equivalent in the districts.
In Haryana, 77 IAS posts are allotted for only one crore of people. 77 posts are also allotted in Punjab. 52 posts are allotted in Madhya Pradesh and 49 in Tamil Nadu, 60 in Chhattisgarh while only 39 posts are allotted in Rajasthan. Similarly, among the three states of the country where there is a shortage of more than 100 posts from the fixed cadre, Rajasthan is in third place. There is a shortage of 208 officers in Uttar Pradesh, 123 in Bihar and 109 in Rajasthan.
In terms of area, where in other states, an IAS has to handle an area of about 200 to 215 square kilometres, whereas, in Rajasthan, an IAS officer is responsible for 1090 square kilometres, about 5 times more than in other states. In such a situation, no matter how capable the administrative machinery is, it affects the work.
If we look at the last two decades in Rajasthan, the same party ruled both the center and the state twice. But efforts were never made properly regarding the allocation of IAS posts. Right now, since 2014, all the MPs have been elected from the BJP in the state and the government at the center is also of the BJP, but no significant work has been done in this regard. However, in the Rajya Sabha, BJP MP from Rajasthan, Kirori Lal Meena definitely raised the question of the shortage of officers.
Veteran politicians from Rajasthan like Natwar Singh, Sheeshram Ola, CP Joshi, Sachin Pilot, Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Namo Narayan Meena, Bhupendra Yadav, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Kailash Chowdhary have been ministers in the Center in the last two decades. have also been Of these, Yadav, Shekhawat, Meghwal and Chaudhary are currently ministers at the Centre. But no one raised even a single question on this issue of Rajasthan which is facing a shortage of officers.