Gujarat govt conducts major reshuffle of 109 IAS officers ahead of 2024 parliamentary polls

The recent reshuffle of 109 IAS officers in Gujarat was not entirely unexpected, but it still came as a surprise to many for various reasons. One of the main reasons for the reshuffle is the shortage of IAS officers in the state, which is currently around 25% less than the sanctioned strength of approximately 313 officers.

This shortfall can be traced back to the Chimanbhai Patel government, which refused to induct IAS officers from 1992 for three years as a form of protest against the unresolved Narmada dam dispute with the Central government at the time.

To address the shortage, the state government has been promoting Gujarat Administrative Service officers to IAS rank, but this has not been enough to meet the demand. Furthermore, several IAS officials are set to retire in 2023, including Pankaj Kumar, who retired as chief secretary earlier this year. To address the waiting period for the promotion of other officers, the government was expected to bring in a major reshuffle by mid-2023.

The recent reshuffle also saw 11 IAS officers of the 2007 batch being promoted. This is the first major reshuffle since Bhupendra Patel took over as chief minister for the second time in December 2022, after the assembly elections.

The announcements were made shortly after the budget session of the state assembly ended on March 31, 2023, which marked Patel's 100th day in office. Some speculate that this reshuffle is a precursor to an expansion of the Patel ministry, which could happen in preparation for the 2024 Parliamentary polls. It's worth noting that Gujarat sends 26 representatives to Lok Sabha, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, will be keen to maintain its hold on the state.

SJ Haider, ACS higher education, has been posted in the Industries and Mines department. Haider was pretty vocal about his work in the Department of Science and Technology and in the G20 inception summit that was held in Gandhinagar after India took over as president of G20.

Sanjeev Kumar, who served as the MD of GSPC, has been appointed as the principal secretary of forest and environment. During his five-year tenure at GSPC, Kumar claimed to have turned the once debt-ridden and controversial organization into a debt-free company, steering it clear of controversies. GSPC had previously been a key point of attack by the opposition Congress against Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister, owing to its debt of Rs 19,000 crore. In January 2023, GSPC became a zero-debt company, and Kumar was also praised for his leadership of Gujarat Gas, a subsidiary of GSPC, which won the award for the best company two years in a row.

However, some employees within the GSPC group were relieved by Kumar's departure, as they felt that he lacked vision and decisive action as a leader. They claim that GSPC is currently in a state of stagnation, with no clear path for the future in sight. According to these employees, Kumar was known for taking weeks or even months to make a decision, leading them to coin the phrase, "Maaster maare pan nahin ne bhanave pan nahin" (The teacher neither beats the students as punishment nor does the teacher teach) in reference to his leadership style.

Milind Torwane, till now commissioner of rural development, is said to be seeing his fourth appointment in less than a year. He now takes over as managing director of GSPC. Being on the board of GSPC group companies as a representative of the finance ministry in the past, the group and its workings are not new for Torwane. The employees within are hoping that with Torwane at the helm, some sort of long-term growth plans would be envisioned and put in place going forward. 

Roopwant Singh has now been appointed as full-time MD of Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation. Since he took charge as in-charge MD of GMDC, Singh has been sounding like a man on a mission to the turnaround of this mining state PSU into a bluechip behemoth. He sounds candid about the loss-making, cash-guzzling power plant of GMDC and great potential for other mining activities that can help GMDC grow back into one of the blue-chip companies that it was considered in the late 1990s. The Corporation has since fallen off the cliff and is said to be mired in several unethical practices. Singh has hired all the Big Four of consulting, paying big dollars, with the hope of leaving his mark in history as the man who turned around GMDC. He has also pinned his hope on mining rare earth elements, which GMDC apparently has enough to fire semi-conductor and electronics needs of our country for years to come.

Mukesh Puri has been appointed as Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department. His predecessor was current chief secretary Rajkumar Puri also would hold additional charge of MD, Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, the corporation that is in charge of managing water from the Sardar Sarovar Project in the state. Both are critical and key positions. The decision to distribute Narmada waters to farmers and citizens from where the canal passes plays a key role in voting patterns in the rural belts. One of the past managing directors said that before one of the Assembly elections, the state government had ensured that all the water bodies in rural areas were full of water in peak summers during the months of April and May. This had helped voters in parched areas of Saurashtra vote for the ruling party. The home ministry is equally critical. Puri, an IAS officer with over three decades of administrative experience, is also said to be a gold medalist from the Delhi School of Economics. Other than Post Graduation in Economics from DSE, Puri also holds a Master’s Degree in International Political Economics from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. At the beginning of his career, he was a district collector when a killer cyclone hit Kandla and port town Gandhidham in the late 1990s, killing several people. Puri was on the ground, working day and night to organise rescue and relief operations. This, many say, was a turning point for once a reticent bureaucrat to being pretty communicative with the right audience.

His batchmate, Sanjay Nandan, has been appointed as director of the Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute.