A significant disclosure made in Parliament two days ago indicates that the governance in Northern Indian states is reeling under an acute shortage of IAS and IPS officers, with Kerala leading the country in vacancy rates.
According to the data submitted by Union Minister for Personnel and Training Jitendra Prasad in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, 482 posts of IAS and IPS are lying vacant in Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and the AGMUT cadre (which includes Delhi also) against a combined sanctioned strength of 2,010. It is about 24 percent of their combined sanctioned strength.
As per data, the average shortage of these officers in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab has been recorded to be 18.6 percent for the IAS and 15.59 percent for the IPS officers, though there is no backlog in the reserved category posts across the two services in the country.
The Union Govt has attributed these vacancies to retirements, expanding governance needs, and cadre restructuring across states.
According to the data, Kerala, AGMUT, and Himachal Pradesh are the top three regions in the country with the highest vacancy rate for IAS officers.
Kerala has the highest vacancy rate of IAS officers, amounting to 32 percent, with 74 IAS posts lying vacant against the sanctioned strength of 231.
Similarly, the AGMUT cadre ranks second, with 136 vacancies against 542 sanctioned posts (25.1 percent), while HP is third, with 36 of 153 IAS posts lying vacant (23.5 percent).
Himachal Pradesh is virtually the worst-affected among all northern states, which has only 117 IAS officers working against a sanctioned strength of 153 and 84 IPS officers working against the sanctioned strength of 96.
This translates into an IAS vacancy rate of 23.5 percent and an IPS vacancy rate of 12.5 percent for Himachal. Overall, the state has reported 48 vacancies against 249 sanctioned positions, leading to a 19.3 percent vacancy rate.
In Haryana, there are 172 IAS officers against a sanctioned strength of 215, with 43 vacancies (20 percent), and 127 IPS officers against 144 sanctioned posts, leaving 17 posts lying vacant (11.8 percent). Overall, 60 of the 359 sanctioned posts are lying vacant in Haryana, translating to a combined vacancy of 16.7 percent.
The story is no different for Punjab, where 33 of 231 IAS posts are vacant (14.3 percent) while 34 of 172 IPS posts are lying vacant (19.8 percent). In this way, Punjab has a total shortfall of 67 officers against a sanctioned strength of 403, amounting to a 16.6 percent vacancy rate.
The minister ruled out any backlog vacancies in the reserved IAS or IPS posts, saying recruitment was done strictly as per reservation guidelines of the UPSC.
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