In an intriguing development, 25 promotee IAS officers from Karnataka skip the Induction Training Programme (ITP) at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) at Mussoorie. These officers are from the State Civil Service (Karnataka Administrative Service and others) grade who were promoted to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
This is the 128th ITP being organized at LBSNAA from February 2, to March 13, 2026. It is a six-week training programme comprising four weeks of in-house training and two weeks of study tour.
A total of 26 promotee IAS officers from the State had been nominated for the programme, but only one officer attended it, while the remaining 25 did not even submit a request to the government for permission to go.
According to Jagadeesha K.G., Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR), all the officers on the list sent by LBSNAA were asked to participate in the ITP. However, only one officer took permission to go there.
Among 26 such officers, seven officers were promoted in 2016, two in 2018, four in 2019, eight in 2020 batch, three in 2021, and two in 2022.
It is important to mention here that the induction programme is mandatory training for promotee officers (SCS and Non-SCS Officers) to be confirmed into IAS as per IAS (Probation) Rules, 1954. Besides, as the LBSNAA letter says, this is a one-time opportunity for these officers who have been inducted into IAS to undergo this training.
As mentioned in the LBSNAA letter, it is compulsory for officers of the SCS promoted to the IAS cadre to undergo ITP, as its aim is to equip the officers with an all-India perspective of governance issues and to develop certain core skills and attitudes required for administrators in the current context of public management.
Organized by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), a total of 547 officers from across the country, including direct recruits as well as the promotees, were nominated to participate in it this year. Around 150 officers from different states are expected to participate in this training programme on a first-come-first-served basis.
Promotee IAS officers have often been found reluctant to attend ITP due to an intriguing reason. A top-level IAS officer tries to reason it out by attributing reluctance to go to ITP to paranoia that they will lose their posts, as after being promoted to IAS, many officers get good posts. Most officers do not go for ITP, as they are worried that the government may transfer someone else to that post, as ITP lasts for about one and a half months.
The result of this collective paranoia is that many promoted IAS officers in the state retire without attending ITP, which is mandatory for confirmation into the IAS cadre. As a result, many of the promoted IAS officers really end up not being IAS officers at all.
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