Joshi's coming to UP creates ripples in state's IAS cadre

LUCKNOW: The arrival of 1977 batch IAS officer A K Joshi from Uttarakhand to Uttar Pradesh has created ripples in the top echelons of UP IAS cadre. The state would now have an IAS officer in Joshi who is even senior to its chief secretary Javed Usmani, who is a 1978 batch IAS officer.
What is interesting is that Joshi has been brought back to UP on the initiative of the UP government, which has taken an active interest in pursuing the matter with the Centre.Under the previous SP government, Joshi had worked on a number of important positions, including as principal secretary, PWD and Panchayati raj. A UP IAS cadre officer, Joshi had opted for Uttarakhand in October 2009 after facing alleged humiliation by the previous BSP government, which virtually dumped him to insignificant posts.
But as luck would have it, Joshi was also never made chief secretary of Uttarakhand in spite of being essentially a hill resident. A strong section of Uttarakhand bureaucracy and successive political dispensations ignored his seniority. He was further sidelined and posted as director general of the Uattrakhand Academy of Administration, Naini Tal.
Joshi's return is discreetly being linked to politics in someway. Only recently, SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav had gone all out to pamper N D Tiwari, who too reciprocated his sentiments by lauding Akhilesh Yadav government. Mulayam's love for Tiwari might be due to his old association with the stalwart, but it is also being viewed as part of SP's political agenda to gain a foothold in the hills where a vast majority of upper castes had turned to SP after its anti-reservation stand in promotions. This, rehabilitation of Joshi, who's being viewed has someone who has been wronged in his home state, will only further SP's appeal in Uttarakhand where the people are on the lookout for a third option after the Congress and the BJP.
The redemption of Joshi -- by being shifted from Uttarakhand to UP -- was cleared by the Government of India though an order issued by the department of personnel on March 12. The order states that the appointments committee of the cabinet has approved the proposal for inter-cadre deputation of Joshi, IAS (UK:77) from Uttarakhand cadre to UP cadre as a special case for the remaining period of his service, i.e., up to December 31, 2013, the date of his superannuation on compassionate ground. He is now likely to join UP cadre next week.
Besides, Ajit Kumar Seth, who is a 1974 batch IAS official and presently holds the post of cabinet secretary in the Government of India (GOI), the state has 30 other IAS officers who are in the scale of chief secretaries (CS). In this list, the first three come from 1976 batch. They are PK Misra, Arun Kumar Misra and P Uma Shanker, all of them holding the post of secretaries in GOI. Next comes the 1977 batch, which consists of total five officers. While its three officers -- Loretta M Vas, Pradeep Kumar Sinha and Nita Chaudhry -- are GOI secretaries, two are in UP -- Jagan Mathews holds the post of chairman, Revenue Board and Joshi, who now stands in the queue for posting.
The 1978 batch is relatively large with total 12 officers. Incidentally, Javed Usmani, who holds the post of chief secretary, also comes from this batch, His other bathmats serving here are Alok Ranjan, posted as Agriculture Production Commissioner, Kishore Kumar Sinha, member of Revenue Board and Anoop Mishra, chairman, UP State Road Transport Corporation. The remaining eight other officials of the batch are in GOI.
The last lot of 10 officials belong to 1979 batch. It has equal number of officials in UP and in GOI.
In the bunch of available officials in UP, Joshi surely becomes the senior most IAS official. But his posting is again only a guess work, as seniority has not always been a criteria in matter of posting in the state. In this scheme, chief secretary is the most coveted post and this goes to the person who enjoys the confidence of the existing political dispensation fits its agenda. Thus, this makes Javed Usamani's case stronger as he has been brought here from the Centre by the ruling Samajwadi Party.
The next option is then the post of chairman, Board of Revenue, which has always been given to the senior most IAS official or sometime the government makes adjustment by way of putting senior most official as chairman, NOIDA or Greater NOIDA, which is incidentally also lying vacant at present under court order. It seems, Joshi is most likely to be posted in either of these two posts.