Reconsider IAS rule changes, Stalin writes to PM Modi
‘Engage More With State Governments’
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
23.01.2022
Chennai: Strongly objecting to the proposed amendments to the IAS (Cadres) Rules, 1954, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to drop the move and instead engage with state governments. The move “strikes at the very root of our federal polity and state autonomy and would cause irreparable damage to the spirit of cooperative federalism”, said Stalin. The ramifications were “ominous” and neither the bureaucracy nor the state governments, the two important stakeholders, welcomed it, he added.
In his letter to Modi on Sunday, Stalin said many of the state governments were woefully short of officers at specific seniorities, “primarily due to the wrong cadre management policies followed by the Union government”. One of the provisions empowers the Union government to unilaterally draft the services of any officer without his/her consent and without the concurrence of the state government concerned.
Stalin suggested that instead of “imposing restrictive provisions to usurp the powers of states”, the Union government could positively reconstruct the working/ service conditions for All India Service officers through a transparent empanelment process and by ensuring professional space and independence so that the officers opt for deputation to the Centre voluntarily without any need for coercive rules. “I am sure, you will agree that civil servants must be allowed to work with a free mind and stay apolitical,” he said.
The amendments would damage the spirit of cooperative federalism and result in concentration of power with the Union government, said Stalin. While the Union government is availing the common pool from Group-I officers at the national level, the state governments solely depend on the limited pool of IAS officers available in the state, he said. The state governments were in the forefront of implementing various programmes, including central schemes. The states also face frequent natural disasters, which demand services of IAS officers. Given this situation, forcing state governments to depute officers would surely aggravate the governance deficit in various states, Stalin said.
“Further, I wish to state that the Union government’s lateral entry recruitment has also affected the morale of the officers who seek deputation on their own willingness. …this new proposal will eventually destroy the uniqueness of All India Services, a basic feature of the Indian Constitution,” he said.
Not going through the consultative process is grossly violative of the federal structure of the nation, said Stalin. The Union cannot usurp an existing provision to the disadvantage of the state in a federal polity. It will tend to weaken the core principles on which the country has been painstakingly built over the past 75 glorious years. Demolition is easy; but reconstruction has always been a long process, he said.
Stalin quoted Sardhar Vallabhbhai Patel, “who envisioned the steel frame of India, which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has a sense of security, where their rights and privileges are secured”.
