Poor posting policy: Secretaries insecure in Narendra Modi government

NEW DELHI: 1980-batch IAS officer Shankar Agarwal and his batch-mate VK Subburaj have something more in common: Both have headed three different departments as secretary in 15 months of the Modi government.

Being a secretary at the Centre, a much coveted assignment in the sunset of a bureaucrat's career, seems the most insecure job presently. One's efficiency and suitability for the job seems under a constant and careful watch — the sacking of LC Goyal as the home secretary last month has driven home this clear message.

A game of musical chairs is on in the finance and home ministries, with key chairs of secretaries of home, economic affairs, financial services and revenue seeing three occupants each during the tenure of this government. So have the priority ministries like water resources and ganga rejuvenation, civil aviation, urban development and key HRD departments like higher education and school education — all have seen three secretaries at the helm so far.



ET studied DoPT records to find that at least 20 ministries or departments have seen three secretaries. A query sent to the DoPT remained unanswered. A comparison with the first 15 months of UPA-2 and UPA-1 show the shuffling of secretaries in Modi government has been far more intense. While ET found at least 79 orders were issued by Appointments Committee of Cabinet in last 15 months for transfers of secretary-level officers, only 24 such orders were issued during first 15 months of UPA-2, while 31 orders were issued in UPA-1's same period. No ministry or department saw more than two secretaries at their helm during the first 15 months of the UPA-2, while the Official Languages department was the only one which saw three secretaries in the same period in UPA-1 government.

"Earlier, ministers used to choose their secretaries and, hence, terms were longer. Now, ministers have little say in the selection of their secretaries — it is a direct PMO choice," a senior government official said. Ex-home secretary GK Pillai said the scenario showed "poor posting policy" and said bureaucrats must have more stability. Ex-cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian said: "This government hardly changed any secretary immediately on coming to power. The changes have taken place after government assessed the performance."