IAS Punam builds her castle in thin air to stay in Bihar

Jaipur: Let us tell you a bizarre tale of 2005 batch IAS Punam, who has been serving on deputation in her home state Bihar for the past seventy-four months i.e six years and two months. Even though the service rule states that a deputation in the Home state can be only for five years, Punam has managed to get repeated stays from CAT and continued to stay in her Bihar.

However, it has been learnt that now she does not want to return to the Rajasthan cadre. She has filed an application with the Central DoPT that her cadre is changed from Rajasthan to Bihar. As a result, Rajasthan bureaucracy is surprised by Punam’s action and the reason is simple: There is no provision for changing cadre to the home state under IAS service rules. It is not as if Punam would not have known this rule, but perhaps she thinks that the way she has been staying in Bihar for over five years, thus belittling the service rule of fiveyear maximum deputation in her home state; in the same manner she may be successful in getting her home cadre also changed. It has been learnt that Punam has cited several ‘silly reasons’ to stay in Bihar and serve in the state. Experts in administrative issues have claimed that not even a single example of cadre change to the home state has occurred in All India Services since its Independence.

Thus Punam is trying to make possible, the impossible. Sources reveal that the Haryana government has been requesting the Centre to allow its state IAS serving in other cadres to come to the Haryana cadre since there is a dearth of IAS in the state. But the Centre has kept that demand on the back burner and no notice has been paid to it even after years have passed on these demands.

So it is clear that Punam will have to return to Rajasthan sooner or later. But the milliondollar question is why Punam wants to leave Rajasthan. In the state where she worked for ten years and served as Collector of three districts, how did she lose interest in it, suddenly?