Gurugram: Haryana is facing an acute shortage of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers. Against the approved cadre strength of 215 officers, the state has just 168.
As many as 10 IAS officers are to retire by December 2025 and 13 more by December 2026, while the state gets just five to seven new IAS officers every year on average. This means the shortage is likely to increase further in the next two years.
Most serving and retired IAS officers ThePrint spoke to said that such shortage is felt in the administration as several officers are assigned multiple departments, affecting efficiency. Only one retired officer one was of the view that for a small state such as Haryana, the shortage hardly posed a problem.
For example, Sudhir Rajpal, a 1990-batch IAS officer, is additional chief secretary (ACS) for three departments—health and family welfare, medical education and research, and Ayush.
“Earlier, it was a practice to have a full-time ACS for the medical education and research department,” a senior IAS officer said.
Ankur Gupta, another officer of the 1990-batch, is ACS for the cooperation department and the personnel department. Anurag Rastogi, 1990-batch officer, is ACS for the finance and planning department as well as revenue and disaster management department. Anand Mohan Sharan, yet another IAS officer of the 1990 batch, is ACS for environment, forest and wildlife department and the food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department.
“All these departments used to have a separate ACS or principal secretary in the past as they need a full-time officer,” the officer said.
It’s not just 1990-batch IAS officers who are holding multiple departments and the practice continues right down to the level of commissioners, directors and deputy commissioners.
Vineet Garg is ACS for the higher education department and also chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board. Apoorva Kumar Singh is ACS of the town and country planning department and energy department. Anurag Agarwal is ACS for the public works department, architecture department and irrigation and water resources department, as well as adviser to Haryana Saraswati Heritage Board.
Further, Vijayendra Kumar is the principal secretary for three departments—youth empowerment & entrepreneurship, Sainik & Ardh Sainik welfare department and human resources department. He is also the officer on special duty for the proposed Haryana Income Enhancement Board.
Shyamal Mishra has four different charges which require him to be at four different locations. He is chief administrator, Trade Fair Authority of Haryana, New Delhi; Chief Executive Officer, Faridabad Metropolitan Development Authority, Faridabad; Chief Executive Officer, Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, Gurugram; and principal secretary in the Haryana civil aviation department.
Rajeev Ranjan is the principal secretary for two departments, fisheries and labour.
At the commissioner and secretary-level too, several officers have multiple charges. IAS officer Vikas Gupta has urban local bodies department and citizens resources information department, and is also member secretary of Kurukshetra Development Board. Similarly, T.L. Satyaprakash has mines and geology department and is CEO of Drone Imaging and Information Systems of Haryana.
Further, divisional commissioners posted at different locations have been given charge of departments at the state headquarters.
Two examples are Faridabad division commissioner Sanjay Joon, who is also Director General of Sainik & Ardh Sainik welfare department in Haryana, and Hisar division commissioner A. Sreenivas, who is also Managing Director of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam.
The list is endless and many other officers have been given multiple postings like this.
ThePrint reached Haryana Chief Secretary Vivek Joshi via email for comments on the matter. This report will be updated if a response is received.
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From surplus to dearth of officers
Phateh Singh Dagar, a retired IAS officer who was elevated from the Haryana Civil Services (HCS), told ThePrint that shortages affect the quality of service to be provided to the people.
He also said the shortage was because of lack of will at all levels and it was unfortunate that filling up of vacant posts was not a priority for the political and bureaucratic leadership.
He alleged that promotions to IAS from HCS are often delayed. Giving his own example, Dagar said that he joined the IAS by promotion from the HCS in 1998 against a 1991 vacancy.
Another senior IAS officer who retired from Haryana as ACS said that being a small state, Haryana used to have a surplus of IAS officers but things have changed in the past two or three decades.
“I remember one of our IAS colleagues used to tell us jokingly that soon the government would be bifurcating departments into two to accommodate the officers. He used to say that the khel-kood (sports) department would soon have two directors—one for the khel and the other for the kood. However, things have changed now and we have officers handling multiple departments,” he added.
A third officer who also retired as ACS had a different opinion on the shortage. He said Haryana was a small state and hence such shortage hardly posed any problems.
“Due to Haryana’s proximity to Delhi, very few IAS officers are interested in going to the Centre on deputation because they can get the benefits of the national capital by having their posting close to Delhi. This is the reason that the central deputation reserve of the cadre strength is hardly filled completely,” the officer told ThePrint.
He said that the real problem was the disproportionate allotment of departments, wherein some officers were given multiple departments and some others quite insignificant ones.
According to a notification issued by the ministry of personnel, the cadre strength of IAS officers in Haryana was initially fixed at 212, of which 148 had to be through direct recruitment and 64 to be filled through promotions. The strength was later increased to 215.
However, the IAS Officers Gradation List put out by the Haryana government shows the total number of officers currently working in the state at 168.
Of these, 10 officers, Ankur Gupta, Anurag Rastogi, Anand Mohan Sharan, Ashok Khemka, Ramesh Chander Bidhan, Sujan Singh, Ashok Kumar Garg, Rajesh Jogpal, Mahavir Kaushik and Jai Krishan Abhir will retire by 2025-end.
By December 2026, 13 other IAS officers, Sudhir Rajpal, Raja Sekhar Vundru, Abhilaksh Likhi, Arun Kumar Gupta, D Suresh, Sanjay Joon, Anita Yadav, Geeta Bharti, Jaibir Singh Arya, Mukesh Kumar Ahuja, Pardeep Kumar, Virender Lathar as well as Chief Secretary Vivek Joshi, will retire.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)