DIPAM crippled with 43 percent vacancy rate; Panel suggests task force to fill vacancies

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has expressed its deep concern over the acute manpower shortage in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), urging the Finance Ministry to pursue the matter as a priority by setting up a dedicated task force to ensure early filling of all 38 vacant positions in it.

The committee, in its report in March, had noted that the DIPAM was managing its work with only 51 officers against a sanctioned strength of 89—with critical shortages at the Director (11 vacancies) and Under Secretary (8 vacancies) levels—’severely jeopardizes’ the department’s ability to execute complex transactions like the IDBI Bank sale or finalise Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) MoUs.

The panel expressed extreme displeasure by saying that for a department overseeing a public asset portfolio exceeding Rs 42.76 lakh crore, even routine administrative correspondence is grossly inadequate.

The panel flagged its concern, saying that ‘no tangible progress’ was being made in resolving vacancies despite the panel presenting its report in March itself.

The panel also expressed deep concern at the modest fund allocation to the department overseeing an ambitious value maximisation agenda and operating with a ‘crippling 43 percent vacancy rate.’

The Finance Ministry, in its ‘action-taken’ report, said that DIPAM has been pursuing the matter with the concerned departments on a priority and that the matter of filling up vacancies of assistant section officers (ASOs), section officers (SOs), under secretaries, and assistant directors was taken up with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Department of Expenditure (DoE), and Department of Economic Affairs.

The committee had also urged DIPAM to formulate a clear legal strategy to safeguard strategic autonomy in entities where state shareholding may drop below 51 per cent. The Finance Ministry, however, said that there is no proposal at present to reduce the government’s stake below 51 percent in CPSEs except in those cases wherein strategic disinvestment is being pursued.