Breaking the dry spell of around six years, the vacancies in the UPSC CSE exam have finally touched the mark of 1000. Earlier, this year, the commission released the official notification of the UPSC CSE 2022 exam announcing 1011 vacancies.
Although, initially the commission notified 861 vacancies later it introduced 150 additional vacancies. This was because of the newly introduced Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) cadre. This cadre has been created with the idea of overlooking the expansion of metro corridors, railway accounts, etc.
However, this is not new that the country is suffering from a shortage of bureaucrats. This can be checked by the decline in the number of vacancies notified over the years. Minister of State, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, Jitendra Singh has announced that at present, there are 1472 vacancies for IAS and 864 vacancies for IPS. However, the filling of these vacancies is going to be done in a formal manner as per the requirements of the state.
What do Officials Say?
This new development is been welcomed by the senior IAS officials and coaching class. Talking to a news daily, a retired IAS officer shared that this surge in the vacancies is going to provide an additional window of selection to candidates. Also, the introduction of vacancies in the IRMS cadre will make sure that expert officials are overlooking the expansion of metro and rail networks in the country.
Impact of Shortage of IAS, IPS on states
Earlier, in March 2022 a parliamentary committee was constituted to overlook the decline in the number of IAS, and IPS vacancies. As per the findings of the committee, there is a huge gap between the task force needed and sanctioned. Briefing the parliament about this deficit, Sushil Kr Modi, chief of the committee said that this is going to have bad implications for the administration system.
This would lead to a compromised administration system, especially in states like UP and Bihar where the population is much more. The committee also suggested the government and DoPT increase the intake of IAS and IPS.