Of the 18 Gujarat IAS officers in the Central government, 4 serve in the PMO, 4 in the finance ministry and 2 in the home ministry.
New Delhi: Ever since Narendra Modi led the BJP to victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and moved from being Gujarat chief minister to India’s prime minister, there has been much speculation about the civil servants from his home state in the central government.
Who are the IAS and IPS officers from Gujarat who are key to PM Modi’s governance agenda? How many of them are serving in the central government? What are the positions they occupy?
Information accessed by ThePrint under the RTI Act and independent enquiries reveal that only 18 of the 492 IAS officers — about 3.65 per cent — serving in the central government are from the prime minister’s home state.
But more than the number, the significance lies in the positions these officers occupy. Four of these 18 are in the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office, four in the finance ministry, and two in the home ministry.
“It is obviously not unheard of for politicians to appoint officers they like. But in this government, this trend has been taken to another level,” a Rajasthan-cadre officer told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity.
“There is already this perception that all the power in the government is centralised in the PMO, and that is packed with Gujarat cadre officers. Even in other important ministries, you appoint them. Then what does it do to the morale of the services in general?”
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