New Delhi, July 20
With the 2G Spectrum scam turning the spotlight on the cozy relationship between senior bureaucrats and the corporate sector, the government is planning to make it tougher for retired officials from taking up employment in the private sector.

At present, government officials can accept private sector jobs a year after retirement .However, the government now proposes to raise this “cooling-off” period to three years. The Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), under its new minister V.Narayanswamy, is currently in the process of finalising the necessary amendments to the rules for approval by the Cabinet.

Moreover, it is also taking a close and tough look at the requests it receives from retired bureaucrats seeking exemption of the one year “cooling-off period.” DOPT sources said it receives at least 10 to 12 such requests every month and most of them are from officials who have served in economic ministries. The DOPT has, so far, been taking a fairly lenient view in such cases but the recent furore over the 2G Spectrum scam has forced the department to deal more strictly with these applications.

Only recently, the DOPT turned down the exemption application of an officer from the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), who retired about seven months ago, and had got lucrative consultancy offers from two private firms, each paying Rs 30 lakh per month.

The department also rejected the application of another officer, who had a job offer from a construction firm after he retired from the Urban Development Ministry. Enquiries revealed that the same firm had been awarded contracts by the ministry during the concerned officer’s tenure, raising serious issues about “conflict of interest.”

Although this matter has grabbed government attention in the past , it was recently in the news again when the 2G Spectrum case probe revealed the nexus between senior bureaucrats and the corporate sector. More specifically, the role of four former bureaucrats came under scrutiny for their links with PR consultant and lobbyist Niira Radia, whose firms include Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, Noesis Strategic Consulting Services,Vitcom Consulting and NeUCom Consulting.

The bureaucrats in question are former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman and disinvestment secretary Pradip Baijal, former economic affairs secretary CM Vasudev, former industrial policy and promotion secretary Ajay Dua and former Trai member DPS Seth. Soon after the scam surfaced, the Cabinet Secretariat examined their connections with Radia’s firm Noesis

After retiring from TRAI, Baijal joined Radia's firm Vaishnavi Communications and subsequently partnered Radia to set up Noesis Consultants and was its chairman when the 2G scam surfaced. While these cases hit the headlines recently, the early nineties had witnessed a similar case of high-profile officials joining the private sector when Rupert Murdoch picked Doordarshan head Rathikant Basu to lead Star’s India operations along with Urmilla Gupta and Indira Mansingh, both senior officers from the information service.