Last Updated on July 8, 2022 at 9:30 am
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has approved the admission of 28 officials from the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Services (JKAS), comprising 14 serving and the same number of retired officials, into Indian Administrative Services (IAS). In the last twelve years, the JKAS officers have joined the IAS for the first time.
Inductions were approved at a meeting in New Delhi that was presided over by the UPSC members. The meeting also included, among others, Additional Chief Secretary for Agriculture Atal Dulloo, Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Principal Secretary for the General Administration Department (GAD), and two Joint Secretary rank officers.
Sources have informed that originally there was a proposal to induct 41 JKAS officers into the IAS. However, the committee ultimately decided to accept only 28 candidates because of limited number of vacancies available.
According to the officials, the inductions will aid Jammu and Kashmir in addressing its IAS officer shortage. In Jammu & Kashmir, there are now just 55 officers working out of 75 IAS duty positions. The officials deputed in the Union Territory of Ladakh are also included on the list. The intermediate rank IAS officer vacancies will also be filled. Some IAS officers are currently in-charge of twin departments.
Additionally, they claimed that the inductions would henceforth be an annual occurrence and that the JKAS officers from all batches would benefit by joining the IAS.
The IAS positions that have been assigned to retiring JKAS officers will be declared vacant in the following round and filled subsequently from among the currently serving officers, according to the officials. The UPSC will release an official announcement of JKAS officers’ induction into the IAS in the upcoming days.
The open positions are from the years 2019 to 2022 are still pending. After positions assigned to retiring officers are declared vacant, more positions will be added. According to sources, the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, and Mizoram Union Territories) cadre will be assigned to JKAS officers who are inducted into the IAS. This is because the Union Home Ministry has already merged the former Jammu and Kashmir cadre into AGMUT since J&K became a Union Territory on August 5, 2019.
Along with benefiting the JKAS officials, the Jammu and Kashmir Government will gain from the JKAS officers’ induction into the IAS by having more IAS officers available in the Union Territory. In light of the dearth of IAS officials, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had to send numerous officers from the All India Services on two to three year deputations to Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh in the past.
