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| Wife of Union Home Secretary outshines peers in retirement | | |
ABID SHAH
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, May 8: Sudha Pillai, an IAS officer and wife of Union Home Secretary GK Pillai, has taken over as Member-Secretary in the Planning Commission. Her appointment to the post that has the rank of a Minister of State at the Centre came within days of her retirement becoming due.
Ms Pillai was slated to retire on April 30. Significantly, on the same day as many as 30 other IAS officers have retired. Yet, thus far none of them has been even remotely as lucky as Ms Pillai. It is another matter that the Central or the State Governments might give some of the retiring IAS officers some post-retirement job in future and avail their services.
Ms Pillai is said to be senior most IAS officer among those reaching the age of superannuation now. She joined IAS 38 years ago and has served first in Government of Punjab and later Kerala besides the Central Government.
Yet eyebrows are being raised over her getting the coveted job of the Member Planning Commission for at least two years from now. As for the secret behind her stupendous rise in Government service where she rose to the post of Secretary in the Planning Commission before her appointment as a Member of the Commission, her staunch support to new economic policies of the Government to push disinvestment and liberalisation are thought to be key to her rise.
A Government Press release issued here on Friday too acknowledged this, saying, "During 1991 she was closely involved in the reforms agenda of the Government."
Along with her husband GK Pillai, who was Commerce Secretary before becoming Home Secretary last year, Ms Pillai has been in the close group of planners of new economic policy led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission MS Ahluwalia and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.
The trio's formidable clout is again signified by her rise to the select crest of the Planning Commission. This is what is thought to be in the bureaucratic circles to be the reason behind Ms Pillai getting the coveted nomination to the Planning Commission while quite a few of her contemporaries cannot hope to be so privileged.
Officers who have been pensioned out around the same time, say for at least now, are Ms Parul Debi Das and Anurag Bhatnagar (Assam - Meghalaya), Priyadarshi Dash and Harishankar Brahma (Andhra Pradesh), Hemchand Sirohi, Narsing Upadhyaya and Jiwan Kumar Sinha (Bihar), RK Thusso (Jammu and Kashmir), CK Vishwanathan and MN Gunavardhanam (Kerala), Syed Shahzad Hussain (Maharashtra), Dr Sundeep Khanna (Madhya Pradesh), Sudhir Sharma (Manipur - Tripura), Ujal Singh Bhatia, Ms R Rajalakshmi, Jagar Singh, Pramod Kumar Mohanty and Jagdish Prasad Agrawala (Orissa), Piara Ram and R L Mehta (Punjab), Vinod Kapoor and Jagdish Chandra (Rajasthan), Ms Thangam Sankaranarayanan and K S Sripathi (Tamil Nadu), Surendra Pal Gaur and Shashi Kant Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) and Asok Mohan Chakrabart, Baidur Bakhat Siddiqui and Sundar Majumdar (West Bengal).
Sudha Pillai who has indeed outshone all of them is credited with high academic attainments. The Government Press release cites two gold medals won by her from Punjab University and also the fact that she went upto Harvard Business School for training in Public Administration.
The Press release also mentions that she held the second position at the time of her selection by UPSC for the IAS. Yet this came out from Government only a day after the UPSC announced results of IAS 2009 examination. A 27-year-old physician from Kashmir, Dr Shah Faisal, threw a pleasant surprise by scoring right upto the top. But before the applause for the latest topper could subside, in its backdrop another top ranker from way back to the early 1970s batch was rewarded as handsomely as to become Member-Secretary at the Yojna Bhavan here.
The Press release issued on Friday went on to list among other things her hobbies like painting, reading and listening to Ghalib, turning it into an unprecedented eulogy on Government's part for officer's uppance.
And, thus, rank at the time of entry into the service seems to have won over other parameters of judging performance. This can be good for toppers. Yet the truth is that there are not more than three toppers in any exam. And the bookish edge struck by them through exam once topped has the potential in the case of IAS to cut and reduce the long line of officers behind them into indifferent or at least not so enthusiastic performers.
Its reflection back in States as also in Jammu and Kashmir is quite palpable. Amid the bonhomie generated by Dr Faisal Shah's making it to the top, the border State was instantly reminded of the second position secured by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's Principal Secretary Khurshid Ganai when he took the UPSC examination many years ago. All eyes are on him now since early next year the new Chief Secretary has to be appointed in the State. There is a whole line of officers senior to Ganai. And quite a few of them are trying to come to terms with the glory the top-notch are now basking in.
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