Miffed babus flee Modi regime

GANDHINAGAR: Radha Kant Tripathy, an IAS officer of the 1977 batch, has decided to quit the services. He becomes the seventh IAS officer of Gujarat cadre to resign ever since Narendra Modi came to power. Tripathy has cited "health reasons" for his resignation and decided to work as a consultant for private firms.
However, his colleagues say that he was feeling increasingly frustrated after being removed from the post of commissioner of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation earlier this year.Senior officials were also left wondering if the flurry of resignations from the IAS over the last four years in Gujarat was a clear manifestation of the unease in bureaucracy because of the present political leadership.
With seven IAS officers having already resigned, insiders say at least two more are considering putting in their papers soon. One bureaucrat, who did not want to be quoted, told TOI that there was no job satisfaction working under Modi.
"Hype has taken over governance and there is suffocation all around," said the former official. It was former managing director of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Sanjay Gupta who opened the floodgates in 2002 by joining the Adani Group as CEO (infrastructure).
A key figure in the Keshubhai Patel government, Gupta was upset because he was not considered for the post of member-secretary, Sangeet Natak Akademi. Others who quit the IAS thereafter were Vijay Ranchan, Sunil Sud, Santosh Mahapatra, Keshav Verma and AK Sinha.
Apart from them, roads and buildings secretary HP Jamdar also resigned, though he was not an IAS officer. Before Modi, old-timers recall only three occasions when IAS officers quit services ��� Dr S Ramakrishnan (1960 batch) who resigned in early 1980s to become a Harvard consultant in Kenya; Arvind Sharma (1962 batch) who went abroad on study but never returned; and Gaurishankar Ghosh (1967 batch) who went to Unesco in early 1990s.
Minister of state Saurabh Patel, who is in charge of administrative reforms, does not find this trend disturbing. "It was their personal choice," he says. The government's argument is that IAS officers were being sought by private sector with attractive salaries and perks.