Paving the way for the long awaited promotion of 17 officers of Provincial Civil Services (PCS) to Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the chief minister Puskhar Singh Dhami has given his nod to the proposal. The CM office has now sent the file of promotion to the department of personnel (DoPT) which would act on it. The list sent by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) after the meeting of its Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) had the names of 18 officers but it is learnt that one PCS officer, Girdhari Singh Rawat has declined his proposed elevation to the elite cadre of IAS officers. Rawat is scheduled to retire in 2028.
The officers who would get the promotion are Lalit Mohan Rayal, Anand Srivastava, Harish Kandpal, Meherban Singh Bisht, Alok Pandey, Banshidhar Tiwari, Ruchi Rayal, Jharna Kamthan, Dipti Singh, Ravneet Cheema, Prashant Arya, Prakash Chandra, Ashish, Vinod Giri Goswami, Sanjay and Navneet Pandey. It is pertinent to mention here that the promotion of PCS officers to the cadre of IAS is pending from the last 11 years due to dispute between the direct recruits and promoted PCS officers. In February this year the dispute ended when the Supreme Court (SC) ruled in favour of officers recruited directly in PCS cadre. The promotion of the PCS officers would provide a big relief to the state government which is reeling under shortage of IAS officers in its ranks.
