DoPT seeks change in norms for post-retirement jobs of bureaucrats

NEW DELHI: Senior bureaucrats who could take up plum post-retirement jobs in the private sector after a mandatory cooling-off period of one year may now have to wait for two years.

According to Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy, his department will soon write to the Prime Minister seeking changes in the All India Service Rules to increase the cooling-off period for retired civil servants to two years.

This is essentially to avoid conflict of interest as senior bureaucrats holding key positions in economic ministries routinely join private companies with which they had dealt as government servants.

Though the service rules until January 1, 2007, put the mandatory cooling-off period for bureaucrats looking to join the private sector upon retirement at two years, the pressure from the IAS lobby forced the government to cut this period to one year.

Incidentally, several senior bureaucrats do not want to wait even for one year and the DoPT is flooded with requests for waiving off this stipulation. Many of them have joined the boards of top corporates within months of their superannuation.

Among these are former revenue secretary PV Bhide who was allowed by DoPT to join five companies -- NOCIL Ltd, Heidelberg Cement India Ltd, Tube Investment India Ltd, L&T Finance Ltd and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd – soon after retirement. Another case is of former telecom secretary Pradip Baijal, who joined a company promoted by corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, immediately after retirement.

IAS officer Ashok Mohan Chakraborty, who retired as chief secretary of West Bengal on April 30, 2010, wasted no time in applying to DoPT for waiving off the coolingoff period. He was subsequently allowed by DoPT to join the Essar Group. Naresh Dayal, health secretary until September 30, 2009, too joined GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Health-care as a non-official director a few months after retirement.

The All India Service Rules bar a pensioner from accepting any commercial employment before the expiry of one year from the date of retirement, except with the prior sanction of the Centre.