Jacks of all trades crowd Orissa bureaucracy

The IAS cadre strength is down from a sanctioned 226 to 134,with few replacements.

Sudarsan Nayak,59,a judicial service officer in Orissa,often starts his day as Excise Commissioner and ends it as Inspector General of Registration,having spent the time in between as Director of Land Records and Survey,Commissioner of Consolidation and Secretary in the Board of Revenue.

The offices are all in one place,Rajaswa Vihar in Cuttack,but Nayak has little else to be thankful for. I am really hassled. I have just a year to retire and should have been a secretary in a department now. I try to dispose of as many files as possible,but it is getting difficult, he says.

People who travel to Cuttack with land issues complain that their cases are piling up as there are no dedicated officers for these crucial posts. Over 2,000 cases have piled up before the Consolidation Commissioners office, said a lawyer in the High Court.

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Nayak is not alone; scores of bureaucrats in Orissa are handling multiple jobs (see box). The IAS cadre strength is down from a sanctioned 226 to 134,with few replacements made for retired officers and those whohave left on Central or inter-state deputation. Also,the state government has decided to punish some allegedly errant officers by making them officers without duty.

Recruitment has been low,if at all,since an agreement with the UKs Department for International Development in 1998 for rightsizing the bureaucracy. And it is not just bureaucrats that the state is short of.

There are just 1,400 non-gazetted staff in the state secretariat against a sanctioned strength of 2,800. Of 314 blocks,some 65 have no BDOs. As each such office gets an average Rs 25 crore a year to develop their blocks,their absence is telling on development.

The freeze on recruitment,in fact,came in 1996,before the agreement with the DFID. The state then had over 5 lakh government employees,a number now down to 3.45 lakh with the government not filling up some posts,and abolishing others as and when people have retired. Every year,10,000-12,000 people retire from state government service.

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In Maoist-affected Malkangiri district,the Excise Officer doubles up as District Project Coordinator for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and also has to look after rural electrification work under the Rajiv Gandhi Gramya Vidyutikaran Yojana.

Former Finance Minister Panchanan Kanungo said giving a bureaucrat more than one post is a surefire way to bring down his or her efficiency. They would never be held accountable to a particular department, said Kanungo.

A senior IAS officer agreed. If the officer gets more than one post to handle,he or she would stick to the department that is the most lucrative, he said.

Kanungo said rightsizing of the bloated bureaucracy ended up downsizing it. This is no bureaucratic reform. This has made bureaucracy defunct and has impaired the functioning of the government.

Too much to handle

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Sudarsan Nayak: Excise Commissioner; Land Records Survey Director; I-G of Registrations; Consolidation Commissioner; Board of Revenue Secy

Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra: Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Central); Sri Jagannath Temple Chief Administrator; IDCO CMD-in-charge

Surendra Nath Tripathy: Rural Development Secretary; Information and PR Secretary

Aurobindo Behera: Forests and Environment Secretary,IDCOL CMD

Arti Ahuja: WCD Secretary; Handloom and Textiles Secretary

G Mathivathanan: Energy Secretary; Parliamentary Affairs Secretary

Parag Gupta: Secretary to Governor; Sports and Youth Affairs Secretary

Pradip Jena: Panchayati Raj Secretary; IT Secretary

Upendra Nath Behera: Home Secretary; General Administration Special Secretary

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