New Delhi, May 10
It is not just the Armed Forces which are facing acute shortage in the officer cadre, country’s elite IAS has a shortfall of close to 30 per cent with Uttar Pradesh leading the list with 216 missing Indian Administrative Service personnel.

Minister of state for personnel V Narayanasamy told the Rajya Sabha today that against the total authorised strength of 6,154 IAS officers in the country, only 4,377 were actually in position, 3,392 through direct recruitment and the rest (985) by the way of promotions from State services.

“IAS officers are borne to the state cadres. They, however, serve the Government of India on Central deputation. Out of the total authorised strength of 6,154 IAS officers in the country, the Central Deputation Reserve (CDR) is 1,331 enabling the IAS officers to serve Centre on deputation. Of these, 675 IAS officers are in position as on April 1, 2012,” he said.

In all, there is a shortage of 1,777 IAS officers in the country, with UP having the highest number of vacant post at 216, followed by Bihar (128), Madhya Pradesh (118), Rajasthan (112) and Jharkhand (100). Punjab has a shortfall of 60 IAS officers, Haryana (27), Jammu and Kashmir (46), Himachal Pradesh (28) and Uttrakhand (36). The numbers have the potential to delay, if not impair, implementation of crucial developmental projects.

Now the reasons for the shortage of officers at cutting levels of administration, both at the State and the Centre, are many.

According to the minister, the government had accepted the Paswan Committee recommendations on the requirement of IAS officers. The panel had made 13 recommendations, including cadre review every five years and states sending names well in advance to the Centre for the purpose of empanelling officers and also promotee officers. However, disputes were pending relating to the promotee officers at the state level.

There were litigations against promotion of state cadre officers to the rank of IAS in states like UP, while the Odisha government had not send the list of officers to be promoted. “We are trying to reduce the disputes and finish the cases as early as possible. Sometimes what happens is, the ACRs of the officers are not sent in time. There are several deficiencies while considering the promotion quota and also in the process of filling up of the posts,” the minister said.

“If all states cooperate, vacancies will come down to 15%," he said, adding the Centre was working with States to see vacancies are filled at the earliest.