‘Sufficient pool of officers’: when lateral entry scheme faced questions — within

Underlining that the “exercise should be only to mitigate the shortages of the above batches because now the batch size is very large…”, the report noted that an expected outcome of the measure would “also enable bringing in a fresh perspective in the policy-making process”.

However, when this proposal reached the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in April 2017, it countered the rationale of the scheme by flagging that there was no shortage of empanelled officers who had applied for posting at the Joint Secretary level — for every vacancy, there were, on an average, 18 applicants. The DoPT also questioned the proposed lateral entry of 15 Joint Secretaries (JS) annually for seven years, totalling 105 posts. Pointing out that there were about 300 JS-level posts, it sought clarity on whether the Group of Secretaries indeed intended to fill one-third of those posts on contract basis.

“The percentage appears to be on the higher side given the fact that the GoS itself has stated that this is being done on an experimental basis. It will be appropriate to specify a cap… say 5-10% to be filled on contract basis in the recruitment rules,” read the DoPT file noting, dated March 9, 2017.

Subsequently, a DoPT official suggested that the number of empanelled JS officers, as of January 1, 2017, be obtained “to have an informed decision”. On April 6, 2017, a DoPT division reported that “there are 3,065 officers empanelled to hold JS and equivalent posts… belonging to 1987 to 1999 batches of various participating services” under the Central Staffing Scheme (CSS).

The DoPT further pointed out that while the total number of vacancies as of January 1, 2017 at the JS level in CSS was 21, the number of officers who applied for these posts was 381. Its conclusion: “…it is apparently clear that (a) sufficient pool of empanelled officers is available for posting at the JS level and (an) adequate amount of officers have applied for postings… in a ratio of 1:18.”

The DoPT also analysed the projected shortage of officers caused by abnormally low recruitment during 1996-2002 to conclude to the contrary.

“The low level of recruitment in IAS and other services during 1996 to 2002 may begin to have (an) impact on filling up of JS level posts from about three years from now (2017) and may continue for about seven years thereafter. The shortage to a reasonable extent can be made good as the bandwidth of the batches considered for empanelment is large and officers of senior/ junior batches as well as pool of officers from all the Central Services and AIS (All India Services) will be available in this bandwidth,” it noted.

In light of the number of available and empanelled officers, the DoPT amended the file for a presentation made in May 2017 for the Prime Minister. Despite the DoPT’s submission, the ball was set rolling on lateral entry of 10 JSs and 40 DS/Director level posts.