After new Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba took charge replacing Rajiv Mehrishi on August 31, the Union home ministry has once again undergone a bureaucratic reshuffle.
According to orders issued earlier this week, critical divisions like centre-state and foreigners have a new joint secretary, so do police modernisation, freedom fighters and internal security (II) divisions. Those who were holding these posts have been shifted to another division.
Incidentally, the MHA has appointed two joint secretaries in the forgotten 'freedom fighters' division, giving one joint secretary exclusive charge of 'enemy property'. These divisions don't have as much significance in the scheme of things as far as crucial functions of the ministry are concerned.
The fresh round of reshuffle has left bureaucrats wondering whether the government does not want one officer to hold on to a single post for too long.
"It seems no officer is supposed to be dealing with one subject for too long,” said an official who did not wish to be named.
It may be recalled that North Block atop the Raisina Hill was once a ministry that saw joint secretaries holding crucial posts like centre-state, police modernisation, internal security divisions for five years at a stretch and thereafter getting promoted and sometimes even sticking on as additional secretaries in the same ministry.
But with the BJP government coming to power at the Centre, reshuffles have become a norm.
Under Mehrishi's two-year tenure, reshuffles happened twice and now it's the third time the ministry has new faces in some divisions with old faces being sent to other divisions.
Days before retirement, Mehrishi, in an interview with THE WEEK, said that reshuffles are a part and parcel of a bureaucrat's job and it is also a decision that is taken by the government keeping in mind various considerations.
"This is a large ministry with 20 joint secretaries and four additional secretaries. So when there are frequent transfers in and out of the ministry, it necessitates changes in the ministry," he had said.
