Chhattisgarh’s governance facing grim scenario due to acute shortage of bureaucrats

The governance in Chhattisgarh is facing a bizarre predicament, as despite suffering from an acute shortage of IAS and IPS officers, 30 more officers are to be sent for election duties as poll observers. Against the sanctioned cadre strength of 202 IAS posts in the state, only 173 officers are currently working. This shortage of 29 officers has been further complicated by the fact that 21 IAS officers are currently posted on central deputation, including senior officers like Amit Agarwal and Nidhi Chhibber.

Recently, S. Harish and Dr. Priyanka Shukla have also gone on central deputation. These officers are serving in the central government in key areas such as policymaking, internal security, agriculture, health, digital identity, AYUSH, and investment. Due to this shortage, many officers have been given additional responsibility for important departments.

The problem is not confined to IAS officers alone; the situation is no different for the IPS officers as well. The total sanctioned posts for IPS officers in the state are 153, while only 129 officers are currently serving. In December, the state received five new IPS officers. Thus, there are now a total of 134 IPS officers posted there. This means that 19 posts are still vacant.

Like the IPS officers, the state also has 153 IFS officers posted, but only 118 officers are currently working. Thus, 35 posts of IFS officers are vacant in the state.

Against this background, 30 IAS and IPS officers have been assigned poll duties for the assembly elections in five states. The Election Commission appointed 25 secretary-level IAS and five senior IPS officers of the Chhattisgarh cadre as election observers for assembly elections in Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, and Puducherry.

The IAS officers selected for poll duties include Ritu Sen, Siddharth Komal Pardeshi, Neelam Ekka, S Prakash, Bhuvnesh Yadav, S Bharathidasan, Ankit Anand, Shammi Abidi, Avneesh Sharan, and Saransh Mittal, among others.

21 IAS officers who hold key positions at the Centre currently include Gaurav Dwivedi, Maninder Kaur Dwivedi, Amit Agarwal, Harish S, Richa Prakash Chaudhary, Namrat Gandhi, Shiv Anant Tayal, Saurabh Kumar, Tamboli Ayyaz Fakirbhai, Dr Priyanka Shukla, Neeraj Kumar Bansod, KC Dev Senapati, Alex Paul Menon, Shruti Singh, Alarmel Mangai D, P Amblangan, Prasanna R, Sangeeta P and Ritu Sain.