The list of headless departments/organizations has been expanding of late. One may call it a usual sloppiness in filling the vacancies or a deliberate decision but it can not be given a discount on the pretext of COVId impact.

By any means, this sort of drift is never conducive to governance or fostering quality administration, much less for the image of the government.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has been headless for more than a month; National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) for over seven months; Central Information Commissioner (CIC) for a long time; and DG (Investigation), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for over a month.

The Doordarshan (DD) has been headless after Ms. Supriya Sahu (IAS:1991:TN) repatriated to her cadre state in early this year. The same is the fate of All India Radio, Prasar Bharti, and Satyajeet Ray Film Institute.

At least six ministries & departments are awaiting regular secretaries. National Security Guard (NSG) fell vacant a few days back whereas the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is running headless for over a year. Dozens of Board level positions in various Central PSUs are lying vacant amid no signs of hope very soon. If some well-placed sources are to be believed over four hundred posts of the independent directors are lying vacant some of them do not have even a single Independent Director.

(By Rakesh Ranjan)