NEW DELHI: After keeping an age bar for joining the Union Cabinet, the Narendra Modi government is now coming up with a policy that would restrict senior bureaucrats beyond 55 years of age from foreign deputation postings. No foreign deputation will be given to these officials. The government feels that it does not add any value to the country.
The development came in the wake of an instance of a top bureaucrat, who has been on foreign posting for over 10 years and was again seeking extension. While rejecting the officer’s application, Prime Minister Modi has also directed his office to draft a policy to this effect. PM Modi feels that an officer’s experience in the last leg of his career of foreign stint will not benefit the country.
Several senior babus have enjoyed long and extended foreign postings. Sanjeev Ahluwalia, a 1980-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre and younger brother of former Planning Commission chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, had enjoyed extended posting in the World Bank for many years since 2005.
Earlier, M N Prasad, a Bihar cadre IAS officer who was Secretary to Manmohan Singh, had gone to the World Bank by replacing Pulok Chatterji, during the last leg of his career. Even Chatterji, considered close confidant of the Gandhi family, was posted at the World Bank at the age of 56 and returned India barely months before his retirement.
“After 55 years, foreign posting’s experience will not add any value to the country. By the time, the officer comes back to India after completing tenure, he/she would be approaching retirement. Government does not gain from their experience during foreign posting,” said an officer from the PMO, who is involving in the policy-making.
Top officials of the rank of additional secretary and secretary will be covered under the new rule. The government feels that bureaucrats generally go for deputation postings abroad which include the United Nations bodies; international financial institutions like World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank (ADB); multilateral organisations of which India is a member like International Atomic Energy Agency, World Trade Organisation, Commonwealth organisations; International Court of Justice, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and bilateral bodies set up under the Vienna Convention—embassies and bodies set up under them. Besides, the posts also included international NGOs or funding organisations from which India receives technical or financial assistance like Action Aid, Aga Khan Foundation and Ford Foundation, etc.
Several officials are serving their foreign postings beyond the age of 55 years. The tenure of 56-year-old Umesh Kumar, Director at the ADB headquarters in Manila, a 1983 batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, is up to 2016. Similarly, Subash Garg of the same IAS batch of the same cadre is in the World Bank. Others include Anjali Prasad, the 57-year-old 1983-batch Uttarakhand cadre IAS officer who is India’s ambassador to WTO; Rakesh Mohan, the 66-year-old retired Deputy Governor of RBI is Executive Director in IMF; Dilip Sinha, 60, an IFS officer of 1978 batch, and B N Reddy, Anil Rai and Rajiv Sinha are at the Permanent Mission of India in the UN, Geneva.
The PMO believes that most of these bureaucrats do not come back to India and try to settle in the country they have served in after developing good relations in that country during their stint. Previously, Namita Datta did not come back from her World Bank deputation in Washington; Atul Bagai did not report back from his Singapore posting, Rahul Anand and L V Nilesh did not bother to come back from their World Bank assignments, and the list goes on.
Recently, the Modi government set a cap of ‘four’ foreign visits for an officer in a year, and also sought “justification” for the visit of each member in a delegation—and why a “video-conferencing facility” cannot be utilised for interacting with foreign counterparts? Earlier, the UPA government had fixed the period of foreign deputation at seven years, after various instances of officers’ overstaying on international assignment or deputation abroad. In fact, the government has also put monetary penalty on several bureaucrats for overstaying on foreign postings without required permission.
In May, while forming government, Modi, on the instruction from his party cadres, had decided not to appoint anyone above 75 years in his council of ministers.