A new transfer list of officers is expected to be issued soon following the recent administrative reshuffling in Madhya Pradesh. Over the past ten months, since the new government assumed power, an IAS officer transfer list has been released on average every five days.
In total, transfer lists for IAS officers have been issued 68 times in the last ten months, although there was a pause of two and a half months during the model code of conduct due to the Lok Sabha elections. Currently, 385 officers are serving in the MP cadre.
Following the BJP’s return to power, both the Chief Secretary and the Additional Chief Secretary have played central roles in government operations. Notably, after the government formation, neither the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) of Panchayat and Rural Development, Mr. Malay Shrivastava (1990-batch IAS officer), nor the Principal Secretary (PS) of Tourism and Culture, Mr. Sheo Shekhar Shukla (1994-batch IAS officer), have been reassigned. In fact, only officers from other departments have been transferred.
Meanwhile, the collectors in several districts remain unchanged. As of now, 21 districts have retained their collectors since the government’s formation in December of the previous year. Once the voter list work concludes, however, it is expected that several of these collectors may be reassigned.
The districts where collectors have not been changed for the second time include Khargone, Datia, Bhind, Shivpuri, Sehore, Satna, Rewa, Barwani, Tikamgarh, Ashoknagar, Raisen, Dhar, Dewas, Agar, Mauganj, Khandwa, Burhanpur, Morena, Maihar, Pandhurna, and Alirajpur. Among the 385 officers, 282 have already undergone multiple transfers.
A select group of officers has been transferred as many as three or four times since the formation of the new government. Notable examples include IAS officers Ms. Smita Bhardwaj (1992 batch), Mr. Sanjay Dubey (1993 batch), Mr. Manish Rastogi (1994 batch), Ms. Deepali Rastogi (1994 batch), Mr. Umakant Umrao (1996 batch), Mr. Sukhveer Singh (1997 batch), Mr. Vivek Porwal (2000 batch), and Mr. Navneet Kothari (2001 batch). As many officers now oversee multiple departments, further transfers may be anticipated in the coming days to balance their workload.
