
Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Oct 6: 2014 batch of IAS officers, who have been allocated J&K cadre, called on 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 here today to pay their respects and seek his guidance before leaving for the State for formal posting.
Pertinent to mention that in his capacity as DoPT Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh deals with the allocation of State Cadres to every new batch of IAS officers. Today’s meeting sought by the young officers of J&K cadre also assumed significance because that happens to be the Home State of the Union Minister.
There are 6 officers allocated to J&K Cadre from the 2014 batch who include Owais Ahmed, Rahul Yadav, Abid Hussain Sadiq, Qummer Ul Zaman Choudhary, Rahul Pandey and Sagar Dattatray Doifode. All these officers have completed their training at Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy,Mussoorie as well as their probation. In addition, they have also undergone three months’ stint as the newly designated Assistant Secretaries in thh Government of India, which is an arrangement introduced on the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and which enables the young IAS officers to spend a term with various Central Ministries before reporting for posting in their respective State of cadre allocation.
In an interaction lasting about half-an-hour, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the posting of Assistant Secretaries in Government of India had been introduced by the present Government, primarily with two objectives … one, that the young officers could get an exposure of the working in Government of India instead of going straight to State Government. Secondly, it also helps in enabling the newly selected IAS officers to find their mentors and anchors among their seniors in the Union Government, to whom they can reach out at time of need. He said, these young boys are privileged because before beginning their posting itself, they have had the opportunity of meeting the senior Secretaries and Ministers in the Government of India, whereas their seniors from earlier years would sometimes never get such an opportunity throughout their career and even if they got an opportunity like this, it would be much later in career during their term of deputation to the Centre.
As officers allocated the J&K State Cadre, Dr Jitendra Singh said, these young boys owed a special responsibility to the Government as well as society, particularly in the backdrop of a sensitive phase that the State is going through. He expressed hope that these young IAS officers will become ambassadors of the incredible new schemes introduced by the Modi Government and will ensure that the benefits of these schemes should reach every nook and corner of all the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
Exhorting them to work with professional astuteness and rectitude, Dr Jitendra Singh hoped that the young IAS officers being allocated to J&K will help provide a better work culture in governance. He said, the Modi Government has introduced the experiment of “Anubhav” wherein after putting in 30 to 35 years of service, an IAS officer is expected to revisit his first posting as SDM or DM and write an account of it. We hope that when these young IAS officers sit down to write their experience account under “Anubhav” 30 years later from now, they will have reason to feel proud of the service rendered by them during their first posting in one of the districts of J&K State,he said.