Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, on Sunday, requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to drop the proposed amendments to IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954. The Centre should instead engage with State governments to further strengthen the federal spirit of the nation and take forward the noble ideas of the forefathers enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

States such as West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Meghalaya have already voiced strong objections to the proposed amendment.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Stalin said that the proposal for amendments strikes at the very root of the federal polity and State autonomy. “I am deeply concerned about the draft amendments proposed by the Union government, and I would like to place my strong objections to the same. The proposed amendments would cause irreparable damage to the spirit of cooperative federalism that exists between Union and the States and result in concentration of powers with the Union government,” he said.

Wrong management policies

Many of the State governments are also woefully short of officers at specific seniorities, primarily due to the wrong cadre management policies followed by the Union government. While the Union government is availing the common pool from Group-I officers at the national level, the State governments solely depend on the limited pool of IAS officers available in the State.

The new proposal will destroy the uniqueness of All India Services, a basic feature of the Indian Constitution. While the Central services are fully administered by the Union, the idea of All India Services has served the nation well and stood the test of time through a cordial working relationship between the Union and States.

One of the proposed provisions will empower the Union government to unilaterally draft the services of any officer without his/her consent and without the concurrence of the concerned State government. This will certainly demoralise and destabilise the steel frame of bureaucracy in India. If implemented, the All India Service Officers would be spending their career under a perpetual fear of being penalised by the Union government at any time. This does not augur well for the developmental path being vigorously pursued by our country.

“The ramifications are ominous and I would state that the Union government’s hasty eagerness in bringing about such drastic changes in the basic structures of the system of the country without going through the consultative process is once again grossly violative of the federal structure of the nation. Neither the bureaucracy nor the State governments, the two important stakeholders in this serious issue, welcome this move for amendment,” Stalin said.

Instead of imposing restrictive provisions to usurp the powers of States, the Union government can positively reconstruct the working/ service conditions for All India Service officers through transparent empanelment process and by ensuring professional space and independence so that the officers opt for deputation to Union Government voluntarily without any need for coercive rules, said Stalin.