Turning them young

...by the way

 

Turning them young

 

 

P K Misra, Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training, is considered to be an efficient officer. But, he is either over-worked or has become travel weary. For if this was not the case, the North Block would not have made West Bengal cadre IAS officer Hem Kumar Pande an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. As per the note appointing him to this post, Pande is 10 years junior to his batch-mates. And, this note was even sent to the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Pulok Chatterji, Environment Secretary, V Rajagopalan, and Joint Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Nivedita Shukla Verma. The order appointing Pande as Additional Secretary was signed by the Joint Secretary and it showed him to be a 1992 batch officer whereas he actually is of the 1982 batch. The order, dated January 28, 2013, from the Department of Personnel states that the 1990 batch IAS cadre officer from Assam Meghalaya, Ravi Shankar Prasad, will replace Pande as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. It goes on to say that Hem Kumar Pande (IAS, WB, 1992) will be Additional Secretary in the Ministry. Had common sense prevailed, officials in the DoPT would have realised that no 1992 batch IAS officer is eligible for appointment as an Additional Secretary!