For First Time, Collectors Of Bhopal, Indore Junior To Their Counterparts In Seven Districts

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The collectors posted in Bhopal and Indore are either equal in terms of seniority or senior to their counterparts in other districts.

It has happened for the first time that the Bhopal and Indore collectors are junior to their counterparts in other districts.

Bhopal collector Priyank Mishra and Indore collector Shivam Verma are 2013-batch officers, but the collectors of seven districts are senior to them.

Rajeev Ranjan Meena, recently posted in Dhar, is a 2012-batch officer. Similarly, Sagar collector Pratibha Pal also belongs to the 2012 batch of IAS officers.

Gwalior collector Ruchika Chouhan (2011), Rewa collector Narendra Suryawanshi (2012), Shahdol collector Kedar (2012), Panna collector Usha Parmar (2011), and Tikamgarh collector Vivek Shrotiya (2012) are senior to the Bhopal and Indore collectors.

Similarly, there are eight collectors who belong to the 2013 batch of IAS officers.

Earlier, the districts were allotted to IAS officers on the grounds of their seniority, but the pattern has recently changed; seniority is no more a criterion for posting to districts.

Senior officers are posted in small districts, and many small districts have junior officers.

According to experts in administration, criteria for posting an officer have recently changed, but once, the seniority of an officer was the sole criterion for posting in a district.

Even when an officer was sent to a district as a collector for the first time, the kind of district he would get was fixed, they said.

According to them, when the same officer was posted to a district for the second time or for the third time, the kind of district he would get was also fixed.

The government also mulled over the seniority of a collector who was to be posted in divisional headquarters. But now, the officers get a posting to districts at the politicians' sweet will, they said.