By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 14 Jul: A crucial meeting of the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) is scheduled to be held tomorrow in Dehradun to consider promotion of 18 senior PCS Officers to the IAS cadre. This DPC will clear the first batch of the PCS officers who had been selected after the formation of Uttarakhand as a separate state. In all, 18 officers of the 2002 batch PCS officers are likely to be promoted after the DPC meeting tomorrow.
After their promotion to IAS cadre, they will become eligible to be posted as District Magistrates and in future even as Secretaries to the government. It may be recalled that the PCS cadre is considered to be a feeder cadre to the topmost civil service in the country, the IAS. It may also be recalled that against the strength of 126 IAS posts in Uttarakhand, there are only 66 IAS officers currently posted in Uttarakhand. After the promotion, the government would get a better option to shift postings as the backlog of vacancies on this cadre will come down by 18.
It may be pertinent to remind here that the 2002 batch PCS officers had been demanding promotion to IAS cadre for a long time. This was a dichotomy as Provincial Police Service (PPS cadre) officers of 2002 batch had already been promoted as IPS officers and some of them have also been posted as SSPs or SPs (Police Captains of the respective districts). Sources claimed that the powerful IAS lobby had been stalling the promotion of PCS officers for a long time despite the fact that the PCS Officers had won their case for promotion in the Supreme Court.
After this, PCS officer Vinod Giri Goswami filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court. Hearing this, a division bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice BR Gavai in the Supreme Court had directed the state government to promote the eligible PCS officers at the earliest by conducting the DPC. These promotions can be stated to be happening in compliance of the Supreme Court orders.
Among those from the 2002 batch likely to be promoted to the IAS cadre tomorrow include officers Vinod Giri Goswami, Jharna Kamthan, Lalit Ryal, Bansidhar Tiwari, Anand Srivastava, Harish Kandpal, Girdhari Rawat, Meherban Singh Bisht, Alok Pandey, Ruchi Ryal, Deepti Singh, Ravneet Cheema, Prakash Chand, Nidhi Yadav, Prashant, Ashish Bhatgai, Sanjay and Navneet Pandey. On promotion, these PCS officers will be allotted IAS batches from 2013 to 2015 in the IAS.
Sources said that on Tuesday, the DPC is proposed for the promotion of these officers in Delhi. Secretary (Personnel) Shailesh Bagoli has left from Doon to join this DPC to be held in DoPT. Chief Secretary SS Sandhu will also attend the meeting.
