Out of an authorised total strength of 1,407 IAS officers, the four southern states and Odisha have only 1,095. According to figures made available with Express, Andhra Pradesh has only 284 IAS officers against a total authorised strength of 376 officers. The state is short of 92 officers.
In Kerala, the situation is no better. The state has only 158 officers though 214 is the authorised strength.
In Karnataka, there is a shortage of 80 IAS officers. The state has a total authorised strength of 299, but only 219 officers are posted.
Odisha suffers a shortage of 78 officers, with the posting of 148 against an authorised strength of 226 .
Speaking on the issue, former IAS officer Arun Bhatia said there should not be a reason for this shortage as recruitment takes place every year.
The real reason is that all state governments are not keen on posting all India service officers, like those from the IAS, IPS and IFS ranks. “The state governments would rather have state service officers promoted to the cadre posts eligible for IAS officers. I don’t mean to say that the officers from all India services are more honest. Like many other countrymen, they too are corrupt. But among them, some, say five per cent of them, resist to pressure from the state government and thepolitician.”
“Also, the state government cannot get rid of them, penalise them without the permission of the central government or UPSC. They also cannot be bullied, manipulated to make pliable like the officers form state services,” Bhatia said.