The percentage of serving Indian Administrative Service-cadre officers has fallen nearly 19 per cent of the sanctioned posts as 64 posts of IAS officers have remained vacant for months. Currently, as against the sanctioned 380 posts, there are only 286 IAS officers working in the state administration. To reduce the shortfall, the state government has also asked the Centre to release 15 IAS officers.
“Of the total sanctioned strength, 244 comes from regular recruitment, while the rest 106 posts were filled with promotions of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) officers. Currently, the filled regular recruitment posts are 203 and 83 of the promotees category. That means there are 41 vacancies in regular recruitment and 23 in the promotion category,” a senior official from general administration department said, on condition of anonymity.
“To resolve the shortage of IAS officers, the state government has been following up with the Centre about its demand to release 15 officers instead of the 7 to 8 released every year,” the officer added.
Another senior officer claimed that the shortage of officers is not that serious. “The number of vacancies has remain similar in the recent past and is better compared to that of some other states,” the officer said. He, however, refused to name the states.
In 1990, the government of India had decided to reduce the intake of IAS officers. Before that, recruitment of IAS-cadre officers across the country was around 150. It was brought down to 80 later, which is almost half and hence, Maharashtra’s quota was reduced from ten to four. However, the Centre has restored recruitment numbers to 150 annually.