Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Every IAS officer, before joining the administrative services, wants to become a collector. Because of the big batch of officers in the state and their slow posting in the field, the directly recruited IAS officers are lagging behind in getting field posting. The 2015-batch directly recruited IAS officers are posted as collectors.
Nevertheless, four officers of this batch are yet to be posted as collectors. But in other states, their counterparts have been made collectors. In the proposed administrative reshuffle, likely to be carried out in January, there may be changes in the posting of collectors. So, they are keeping an eye on the list containing names of officers to be transferred.
The 2019-batch IAS officers have already been made collectors in Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Similarly, the 2018-batch officers in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhana, Assam and Uttarakhand have been posted as collectors. In Kerala and Maharashtra, the 2017-batch officers have been made collectors. On the other hand, 2016-batch officers have been appointed as collectors in Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Even the 2020-batch officers of Jammu and Kashmir and North East, and Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGUMT-cadre) officers have been posted as collectors.
Nevertheless, as far as getting collectorship is concerned, the IAS officers in MP are lagging behind their counterparts in other states. Seeing the big batch after the one of 2015, the directly recruited officers are scared. There are ten 2016-batch directly recruited officers in the state. Similarly, 2017-batch has 13 officers and 2018-batch 12. The 2019-batch has 11 officers. Because the number of officers in these batches is very high, they may have to wait for a longer period to become collectors.
For promotee officers, clout more important than batch
Having clout is more important for the promotee IAS officers from the State Administrative Services (SAS) than their batch to become collectors. Among the promotee IAS officers, a 2014-batch officer has been made a collector. But none of the SAS officers, before this batch, had been made collectors.
Chances of having experience in more than one district are slim
As the number of officers in a batch is very high, their chances of getting experience as collectors in more than one district are slim. Once an IAS officer had the chance to work in three/four districts. Since their number is going up, an IAS officer may get at the most the collectorship of two districts. Only those who have clouts will get the collectorship of more districts.
