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68% of IAS officers have average tenures of 18 months or less -Atul Thakur
-The Times of India


Ashok Khemka has become famous as a much-transferred IAS officer, but he is far from being the only one to have been shunted ever so often. An analysis of the executive record (ER) sheets of thousands of IAS officers currently in service reveals that frequent transfers are depressingly common.

It shows that about two-thirds of the officers have had average tenures of 18 months or less. The analysis used ER sheets of all 2,139 officers now in service who were selected through the UPSC's civil services exam and had completed 10 years or more of service on November 13, 2013, the date on which this analysis was undertaken.

Among these officers, Vineet Chaudhary, a 1982 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre officer, has been transferred 52 times in 31 years, the highest in the country. Similarly, Assam-Meghalaya cadre officer Winston Mark Simon Pariat has been transferred 50 times in his 36-year career. Kusumjit Sidhu of the Punjab cadre witnessed 46 transfers in a career which spanned over three decades and like his famous colleague Khemka, Haryana cadre officer Keshni Anand Arora is also serving her 45th posting.

There are 13 officers who have undergone 40 or more transfers in their career. Interestingly, seven of these are from the Haryana cadre alone. Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand have two such officers each while Assam-Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh each one IAS officer with 40 or more transfers.

The number of transfers alone doesn't explain the difficulties of the prestigious job. It is the frequency which is more alarming. On this count too, Haryana emerges as the worst state for an IAS officer to be posted in. Five of the country's 10 most frequently transferred officers are from Haryana; two from Jharkhand and one each from Chhattisgarh, UP and Assam-Meghalaya.

Mohammed Shayin and Khemka - both Haryana cadre - are India's most frequently transferred IAS officers, their average frequency being more than once in six months. Similarly, the average time spent between two postings for M Ariz Ahammed, Shahla Nigar, Satyaprakash TL, Pankaj Yadav, Ritu Maheshwari and Rakesh Gupta has been less than seven months. Kailash Kumar Khandelwal and Sunil Kumar Barnwal, who also make it to the list of the country's 10 most frequently transferred officers, have been transferred within seven months and seven days of posting, on an average.

Why does an IAS officer get transferred so frequently? Are honest officers more susceptible to transfers? When contacted by TOI, honorary secretary of the Central IAS association, Sanjay Bhoosreddy, answered in the affirmative and said, "Honest officers are not liked by some unscrupulous political masters, especially in the states, who are hand-in-gloves with the vested interests and try to weaken the organizational systems."

The UP cadre IAS officer, who had to face a series of punishment postings despite turning a loss-making state public sector undertaking into profits, further added that paradoxically even mass transfers and politically motivated transfers are done in the garb of public interest.

TOI's analysis suggests that roughly 14% officers get transferred within one year of service and another 54% within 18 months. In other words, 68%, or over two-thirds of India's top bureaucrats, last on an average less than 18 months at a posting. Only 8% of the officers analyzed had average tenures of more than two years and there are only 14 officers who have managed to complete an average stay of more than three years between transfers.

So how do the frequent transfers impact bureaucracy, the officials and the general public? "Frequent transfers impact the working of the system and demoralize the bureaucracy," says Bhoosreddy. "The family of the officer is the worst sufferer. It affects children's education and in many cases increases the financial burden as the transfers often cause job loss of the officer's spouse", he adds. He further argues that the poor and the vulnerable section is the worst hit as transfers severely impact welfare schemes. "Above all, the common man has to bear the burden of the additional administrative cost of transfer allowance," he says.

The 15th report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission stated that appointments at the highest level of administration often lack transparency and objectivity. The report observed that transfers often coincide with a change in political regime. This leads to instability of administration and lack of faith in the system among the common people.

News reports have also repeatedly confirmed politically motivated transfers and today it is not unusual for ordinary people to associate a particular official with a politician or party. "Transfers with change in political executive are a reality after 1970s and this tendency is raising the question of neutrality of the bureaucracy", adds Bhoosreddy. Other sources, on condition of anonymity, told TOI that many times during a political vacuum between regimes, honest bureaucrats in senior positions get the chance to issue marching orders to corrupt subordinates.

A state-wise analysis of the frequency of IAS transfers once again shows that Haryana is the worst to work in. On an average, an IAS officer is transferred in 11 months and 25 days in the state. Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab are other states that show up badly on this parameter. A bird's-eye view of state-wise transfer data suggests that states which are perceived as badly governed tend to be the ones where IAS transfers are more frequent.

Times View

If senior officers are routinely transferred within months of getting a posting, it is bound to have an adverse impact on their ability to do their job. In turn, this is bound to affect the quality of governance. This is exactly why both administrative reforms commissions and the Supreme Court have suggested fixed tenures for bureaucrats and of an independent body to deal with transfers, postings and promotions. Clearly, such a structure is necessary if political interference is not to completely cripple the bureaucracy's functioning. Of course, the elected government will have some say in the matter, but it must step in only when required for good governance, put on record the reasons why it is doing so, and the justification for such a step.