Nobody retires in UPA

Similar is the case of M K Narayanan,who was recently appointed as the Governor of West Bengal. Narayanan had retired way back in 1992 as Director of Intelligence Bureau,but came back first as internal security adviser and then in the powerful position as the National Security Adviser.

Principal Secretary to Prime Minister T K A Nair retired in 1997. But irrespective of which government is in power since then,he has remained a permanent fixture in the establishment.

These gentlemen are but a few examples of the increasingly growing trend. No bureaucrat worth his influence leads a quiet post-retirement life these days. The UPA seems to see a lot of sense in handing out re-appointment letters to them. There are plenty of new job opportunities in the newly set-up regulatory or advisory bodies and who better than trusted wards to man them.

Appointing retired bureaucrats is not wrong if they meet

the skills criteria. Why dont you question the continuation of Chidambaram Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India R Chidambaram when he is 75 years of age? Why just retired officers? If a job is offered to a retired officer due to his work in the government,what is wrong with it? former Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi,who is now a member of the Planning Commission,asks.

Favourites for the post-retirement appointments,not surprisingly,are the powerful IAS officers. They are all over the place in the Election Commission,Central Information Commission,Central Vigilance Commission,Union Public Service Commission and umpteen such bodies. They also become Governors,interlocutors to carry out back-channel talks with separatist groups,or as members of the Planning Commission.

Though former Cabinet Secretaries and Home Secretaries are much in demand,probably the most consistent performance comes from former Secretaries of Department of Personnel and Training DoPT,sort of human resource wing of the Government. The UPA has re-employed as many as five former Secretaries of DoPT Rahul Sarin,Satyananda Mishra,A N Tiwari,L K Joshi and Pratyush Sinha in different roles.

Among the Cabinet Secretaries,the incumbent,K M Chandrasekhar,is on one-year extension while his predecessor B K Chaturvedi is a member of Planning Commission.

Former Cabinet Secretary T R Prasad was appointed as member of Finance Commission he was there till 2004 while his predecessor Prabhat Kumar was made the Governor of the then newly created state of Jharkhand.

Former Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta has missed out on a post-retirement job so far,but two of his immediate predecessors V K Duggal and Dhirendra Singh are members of the Commission on Centre-State Relations.

The IFS officers traditionally get appointed as Ambassadors and High Commissioners or conduct back-channel negotiations with other countries as Special Representatives. They are also prime candidates for strategic roles. So Shivshanker Menon has been appointed as the new NSA while his immediate predecessor has been Prime Ministers Special Envoy first on Indo-US nuclear deal and now on climate change.

Satinder Lambah is special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan while C R Gare Khan has been carrying out a similar role for West Asia for a number of years now.

The IPS officers have so far been the poor cousins in this aspect,but are now quickly catching up with their IAS and IFS brethren. And they suddenly seem to have become the favourites for gubernatorial assignments,especially in states that are facing internal security challenges. As many as six current Governors M K Narayanan,E S L Narasimhan,R S Moosahary,Nikhil Kumar,Gurbachan Jagat and Banwari Lal Joshi are former IPS officers.