Elections in five states,Chandigarh’s wait for personnel continues

Following the sanctioning of the posts,the two new secretaries were expected to join by the end of January. The Ministry of Home Affairs has now,however,conveyed to the administration that owing to elections in five states,it was not possible to transfer or relocate IAS officers and it would take at least a month or more for the new officers to join. When contacted,UT Advisor K K Sharma said: “ It will take another few weeks or may be a month for the new secretaries to join”.

The decision to recruit secretaries from the AGMUT cadre,however,has reportedly not gone down well with the governments of Haryana and Punjab as both have registered their disagreement on the issue. In fact,Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Punjab Chief Secretary S C Aggarwal had clarified that they would be writing the Centre against the decision which stands to dilute their share in the bureaucracy of the UT Administration.

Till the recent past,the UT Administration had been following the 60:40 ratio norm for filling up key posts with officers from Punjab and Haryana respectively till the UT Administration was hit by the mega projects fiasco. In 2008,the CBI and the CVC initiated inquiries against the then top bureaucrats of the UT Administration including the then Advisor to UT Administrator,Home Secretary,Finance Secretary,Director Information Technology regarding their roles in the mega projects including Multimedia cum Filmcity,Theme cum Amusement Park and the MediCity which came under the scanner of investigating agencies.

Following the questioning of these officials by investigating agencies,officials of the Punjab and Haryana civil services did not express any keenness to join the UT Administration.