Lucknow: As many as 80 transfers carried out within Uttar Pradesh’s Department of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change have been cancelled after irregularities were found in the process. This comes around a year after the state saw anomalous transfers within the health and public works departments.
According to forest department officials, who spoke to ThePrint, Mamta Dubey, the head of the department (HoD) and former principal chief conservator of forests, had transferred 80 range officers (a group B level rank) on 28 July, just three days before her retirement. The cancellation order came two days later, on 30 July, on the grounds that neither any approval was taken from the department’s additional chief secretary (ACS) Manoj Kumar Singh nor any list was shared.
Arun Kumar Saxena, Minister of state (independent charge) forest and environment, told ThePrint that he, too, was not apprised of the transfers.
“When I got to know, I cancelled it,” said Saxena. “That’s all. If there was a mistake somewhere, the same was rectified.”
In a letter issued to Dubey on 30 July, Singh wrote, “The government has come to know that orders to transfer around 70-100 range officers were issued on the level of the HOD in the middle of the plantation drive. This conduct is arbitrary and against the department’s welfare. Neither a prior approval was taken to carry out the transfers nor any list was provided for the same. In this manner, the transfers done in the middle of the plantation drive fall under the category of suspicion.”
ThePrint has accessed this letter.
It further stated that in view of the plantation drive — that is to continue till 15 August — the personnel department had on 14 July, 2023, extended the cut-off for transfers to 30 September, 2023.
Seeking a report from Dubey the same day, Singh added that he has been “directed to immediately cancel all the transfers ordered by the HoD within the past 15 days”.
An inquiry has been ordered into the transfers.
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‘No rules broken, but suspicious’
According to the department’s transfer rules, an HoD-level officer can transfer a maximum of 20 per cent of the strength of a cadre of Group A and B officers or employees if they have completed three years in a district, or seven years in a division.
Official sources in the state’s environment and forest department confirmed to ThePrint that since out of around a total of 650 range officers, less than 20 per cent (80) were transferred, the rule was not violated but the transfers were “suspicious”.
“The HoD can transfer 20 per cent of group A and B officers without taking permission from the Principal Secretary or minister, but the issue has become controversial since the transfers were done three days before the HOD’s retirement and even as the plantation drive was on,” a forest department official told ThePrint.
As mentioned in the letter issued to Dubey, ACS Singh has initiated a probe into the transfers.
When contacted, Dubey refused to comment on the matter.
However, the incident has revealed that most of the departments, including environment and forest, are yet to start the process of merit-based online transfer for group B and C officials, which was suggested by the UP government in its transfer policy for 2022-23.
On 15 June last year, the UP cabinet chaired by CM Yogi Adityanath had approved the transfer policy for 2022-23.
In the government order issued by Chief Secretary Durga Shankar Mishra in connection with the transfer policy, it was directed that “as far as possible, transfers of officials of Groups B and C be carried out through a merit-based online transfer system”.
A day after the cancellation order for the transfer of 80 range officers was issued, ACS to the CM, S.P. Goyal, shot off a letter to all ACSs, principal secretaries and secretaries of all the departments saying that only eight departments had followed the process of merit-based online transfer system via the human resource portal.
In the letter issued by the officer, which ThePrint has seen, Goyal noted that the departments included basic education, intermediate education, dairy development, livestock, backward welfare, medicine, health and family welfare and irrigation and water resources.
It further noted that it is desired by the CM that in 2024, all departments (excluding home and appointments) do transfers using the merit-based online system through human resource portal, and that merit evaluation is completed by 31 March next year.
Past irregularities
Last year, a letter from deputy CM Brajesh Pathak — who holds the medical and health portfolio — to the additional chief secretary of his own department had created ripples in the Yogi Adityanath government. It had come to light that transfer of hundreds of doctors (including of two deceased ones) was done allegedly not in line with the transfer policy and without keeping him in loop.
Soon after, a controversy had broken out in the state’s PWD over transfers of around 400 engineers and attracted the ire of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), which formed a committee to probe the transfers and. Based on its report, the CMO initiated action against six PWD officials, including four top ones.
While an officer-on-special duty (OSD) of the PWD minister on state government deputation was removed from his post and a vigilance probe was recommended against him, five other officials — engineer-in-chief (development) and HoD (head of department), engineer-in-chief (project/planning), senior staff officer, an administrative officer and a principal assistant — were suspended in connection with the irregularities in the transfers.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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