Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, June 2: Continuing with the annual practice introduced by him soon after he took over as Minister-in-charge DoPT (Department of Personnel & Training) three years ago, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today felicitated and personally handed over Certificates of Merit to All-India toppers of IAS / Civil Services Examination 2016, including Nandini K.R., who has scored All-India Rank First and Anmol Sher Singh Bedi, Gopalakrishna Ronanki, Saumya Pandey and Abhilash Mishra, who scored the other top four positions.
Among others from the merit list of first 20, who received their merit certificates directly from the Minister, included Anand Vardhan, Shweta Chauhan, Suman Sourav Mohanty, Bilal Mohi-ud-din Bhatt from J&K and Namami Bansal.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled that the practice of felicitating the toppers of the Civil Services Exam was introduced by him soon after he took over as Minister in-charge, Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) three years ago. The strange coincidence is that, ever since then, consecutively for the last three years, it is a woman candidate who has topped. This year it is Nandini KR, last year it was Tina Dabi and before that, Ira Sehgal, he observed.
The other significant recent feature, Dr Jitendra Singh said, is more and more number of toppers from the States which had much lesser presence earlier. For example, last year a J&K candidate stood at Rank 2 ,while this year a J&K candidate stands at Rank 10, he said. Similarly, States like Haryana and Punjab are emerging more and more whereas earlier, these were far behind States like Bihar and Tamil Nadu, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh also informed that the process of allocating different State cadres to the young officers will be completed soon and said that even though DoPT always tries its best to accommodate the preferences of individual candidates, but it may not always be possible. He said, the cadre allocation process follows a very methodical and foolproof procedure depending upon number of factors including the availabiilty of vacancies keeping in consideration the 66:33 % ratio of outsider : insider officers. The process is absolutely transparent and accessible by individual officers,he said.
As far as the cadre change is concerned, Dr Jitendra Singh said, from time to time there are requests for cadre change particularly when husband and wife happen to be allocated different State cadres. In such cases, he revealed, the two members of the couple can be allocated the cadre of one of the spouses, but other than the home cadre.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, this was the most happening and the best of times for any youngster to enter into civil services, particularly so because under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government has placed before itself the goal of “Maximum Governance, Minimum Government” and in order to effectively achieve this goal, the new lot of bureaucrats will have tremendous opportunity and a larger role to play which will hold the promise of earning them credit not only from the ruling establishment but also from the society. The rising level of expectations and high accountability also offers an opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of the responsibility given to us, he said and assured that government is committed to help the young incoming bureaucrats to give their best.
Union Secretary, DoPT B.P. Sharma and union ARPG Secretary C.Viswanathan explained to young candidates the various procedures of empanelment and allocation of cadres. Unio Rajiv Kumar, Additional Secretary & EO, Rajiv Kumar, Addl Secretary Uma Sharma, Joint Secretaries and senior officers of DoPT were also present on the occasion.
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