Inside The Secretariat: The Power, Politics & Peculiarities Behind The Files

A Rajasthan Link In Gujarat’s Forests

The dominance of the ‘Rajasthan connection’ is visible in the Indian Forest Service (IFoS) cadre too, much like in the IAS. Of the 78 IFS officers currently serving in the Gujarat cadre, 17 are from Rajasthan—meaning nearly every fourth officer is a native of Rajasthan. Uttar Pradesh is second with 9 officers, while Tamil Nadu and Bihar have 8 each. Maharashtra and Gujarat have 6 officers each, followed by Delhi with 5 and Haryana with 4. So, while Gujarat’s forests may belong to the state, the officers’ map is as wide as India itself. Interestingly, 11 women officers are also part of this ‘Forest Express’—meaning that along with tree plantation, women’s representation is also growing well. In short, Gujarat’s forests are not powered only by the Gujarati wind—from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu and Bihar to Manipur, the ‘All India Forest Express’ is on duty. However, against a sanctioned strength of 125, Gujarat currently has only 78 IFS officers. The forest is vast, but the ‘forest force’ responsible for managing it is short of officers.

Coaching Classes Get A Government ‘Class’

The government is now preparing to put coaching classes through a ‘class’ of their own! Until now, coaching centres had considerable leeway over fees, advertisements and rank claims. The proposed rules will bring everything from registration to CCTV and counselling under a regulatory framework. In other words, if you want to run a coaching centre, you may first have to register with the government. A batch will be allowed a maximum of five hours of teaching a day, while competitive-exam preparation could be capped at eight hours—meaning coaching centres cannot keep students ‘booked’ all day in the name of education. The most interesting part. – School teachers will not be allowed to run private coaching classes, coaching cannot operate during school hours, and advertisements making claims such as ‘guaranteed rank’ will face a ban. If a student quits midway, the remaining fee will have to be refunded, making the student not just an ‘admission number’ but a liability for the coaching operator. Small tuition classes with up to 25 students operating from homes may, however, be exempted. The government’s message, it seems, is simple: Teach students, but if education starts looking too much like a business model, the government is ready to take your class too!

Homeless Get Land & A Mini-Village Too!

If the government wants to give plots to homeless families in villages, it would traditionally look for available government land—waste land, kharaba, gauchar, or village-site land. Now, under the government’s new SOP, if government land runs out, it can buy private land too! In other words, “government land is not available” may no longer be an acceptable excuse on the development map. In villages with at least 10 homeless families, government land within 500 metres of the existing village site will be given first priority; if that is unavailable, private land will be purchased. And the responsibility for the purchase has been shifted from the TDO to the DDO—so even the file will now know who could be held responsible for finding land for the homeless. When private land is purchased, the government will not reserve space only for the residential plots but also provide an additional 40 per cent area for infrastructure—20 per cent for internal roads and another 20 per cent for panchayat and other facilities. Water, drainage, anganwadi, health centre, panchayat building and even a community hall will all need space on the map. The land price will be based on the prevailing Jantri rates, and where no residential village-site rate exists, the average of rates of nearby survey numbers will be used. So, in rural Gujarat, the government is no longer just planning to give homeless families a roof—it is preparing to plan an entire ‘mini-village’ around them. The only question is whether the government file will reach the new settlement before the new settlement starts waiting for the file!

Development Can Wait, Planning Can’t

The 16th Finance Commission grants are meant to fund development works in villages, but read the government’s new guidelines and it seems the first thing to get developed will be the planning process itself! Gram panchayats will have to prepare a GPDP worth 150% of their allocated grant, get it approved by the Gram Sabha, obtain TDO approval and then upload it on the e-Gram Swaraj portal. So, whether the village road gets built can wait—but the file’s journey is guaranteed to be long. And there will be separate planning committees at the village, taluka and district levels! The ‘meeting journey’ that begins with the Sarpanch and Talati could eventually reach the DDO, along with officials from health, education, agriculture, animal husbandry, engineering and statistics. Perhaps the government’s biggest fear is that panchayat grants might be spent on a little ‘fun and games’! So spending on salaries, vehicle purchases, felicitation functions, gifts and panchayat festivals has been firmly blocked. Even road works can use a maximum of 20% of the untied grant. Add separate bank accounts, separate accounts, online audits, photographic records of every asset and GeM-compliant procurement—and panchayats may soon have more files of rules than funds for development! The government’s message is clear: “Do development—but first, develop the process of development!”

When IAS Say: “Please Write It Down”

Ministers’ verbal instructions used to make IAS officers’ ears burn. Now, it seems even the ears need a “system upgrade.” The new ministers are still finding their feet in administration, and officers have apparently learned to decide whether a phone call should be taken seriously—or simply dismissed as a “network problem.” Officers seem to have shed their old fear, making the file and the rulebook an even stronger shield. A new “verbal protocol” appears to be taking shape in Sachivalaya: when a minister says something, listen first, think later, and finally say, “Sir, please send it in writing!” Recently, a minister reportedly called an IAS officer to get a small favour done for an acquaintance, but the job did not get done. Insiders say officers have discovered a new rule of their own: listen to verbal instructions with your ears, but wait for the pen and paper before acting. So, the most powerful sentence in Sachivalaya today may well be: “Sir, give us the instruction in writing, and we’ll do it immediately!”

A Family with Its Own Bureaucracy!

A family is currently making waves in Gujarat’s bureaucracy for a rather unusual—and interesting—reason. Four members of the family of Ramesh Chandra Meena, Principal Secretary of the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, are Indian civil service officers, and the striking part is that all four are currently serving in Gujarat. So, whenever the family sits down to discuss “transfer”, “posting” or “cadre”, there is hardly any need to call an outsider—the required expertise is already available at home. Meena’s son Harshil is a 2021-batch IAS officer. He was originally allotted the Kerala cadre, but after marrying Dharini M, a 2024-batch Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, his cadre was changed to Gujarat as per the rules. Meena’s daughter Mansi is also a 2023-batch IPS officer. The brother and sister, who studied in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, prepared for the UPSC examinations and went on to make it to the civil services. Both are now serving in the Gujarat cadre. It is rare in bureaucracy to see four members of the same family serving in the Indian services and all four posted in the same state. So, a joke doing the rounds in Sachivalaya circles is: “For this family, it wasn’t cadre allocation—it was a family allocation!” In an ordinary family, dinner-table conversations revolve around jobs, business or the markets. Here, the discussion could well be about cadres, postings and files—and if there is ever confusion over a government decision, the family now has its own four-member ‘home consultancy’ ready to step in!

Tough On Paneer, Soft On Staffing!

Gujarat is tightening food-safety rules and launching a “surgical strike” against adulterated paneer, but the soldiers needed for the strike are in short supply! Across the state, around 35% to 55% of sanctioned Food Safety Inspector posts remain vacant. So, the law may have been armed like a tiger, but try finding enough inspectors to unleash that tiger in the market—and you may find more empty chairs than inspectors. In other words, there is a sizeable gap between catching adulteration and taking it all the way to punishment. And that is not the only staffing headache. Since Dr Hemant Koshia retired, the Food and Drugs department has been without a full-time Commissioner for nearly a year. The additional charge is currently with Health Commissioner (Rural) Ratankanwar Gadhvicharan. So, the situation in food safety today is something of a bureaucratic recipe: rules are full-time, raids are as required, officers are part-time, and the Commissioner is on additional charge! A surgical strike on adulterated paneer is welcome, but perhaps the first surgical strike should be on the department’s vacant posts. Otherwise, the law will remain tough on paper while adulterators continue to enjoy a rather comfortable “green signal” in the market.