Akram Pasha takes charge as KSRTC Managing Director
Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) Managing Director Ramachandran R., IAS, who has been holding concurrent charge of KSRTC handed over the charge to Mr. Pasha.
The previous MD, V. Anbukumar, was transferred and posted as Secretary, Housing Department on June 2.
Mr. Pasha has served in key positions such as Commissioner of the Karnataka Housing Board and the Labour Department. He has also held the post of Deputy Commissioner in Hassan and Kolar districts.
His appointment comes at a time when KSRTC and other transport corporations in Karnataka are facing a significant financial crunch, as the implementation of the Shakti Scheme, which offers free travel for women, has led to a surge in ridership, but full reimbursement from the government is still pending.
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However, in 2021, Sharma surprised his peers in the civil services by taking voluntary retirement, but only to be sent to Uttar Pradesh, his home state. In UP, he subsequently became a legislative council member (MLC). Sharma holds key urban development and energy portfolios in the Yogi government. Hasmukh Adhia: A 1981-batch retired IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, Adhia served as principal secretary to CM Modi in Gujarat from 2004 to 2006. In 2014, he came to Delhi as finance secretary, where he helmed the government's pet micro-financing schemes and the Mudra Yojana, besides overseeing the implementation of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax regime. In 2022, Adhia was appointed adviser to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and he emerged as a parallel power center in Swarnim Sankul-I, the CM's office. 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According to most insiders, he served as Modi's 'eyes and ears' in his home state while he ruled from Delhi. From industry bigwigs to bureaucrats and even politicians, everyone in Gujarat knew that Kailashnathan's office called the shots in the state. Last year, when his uninterrupted tenure of 11 years ended, Modi's long-time administrative and political trouble-shooter was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. A.K. Bhalla: After a four-year extension until 2024, A.K Bhalla, a 1984-Batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, became the second-longest serving home secretary in the history of independent India, with a tenure of nearly five years. He was appointed home secretary fifteen days after the Centre scrapped Jammu & Kashmir's special status and bifurcated it into two Union territories. Months into his tenure, protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act spread across large parts of North and Northeast Delhi, and riots also broke out. Through Bhalla's eventful tenure, he gained the unconditional confidence of the Home Minister, which became crystal clear with his December 2024 appointment as the Governor of Manipur, where violence has continued for nearly two years. Less than two months into his appointment, President's Rule was imposed in the state, thereby bringing it under the direct and official control of the Centre. Cultural and global projects For an ideologically motivated government such as the Modi regime, religious, cultural and soft-power-related projects and events such as the inauguration of the Ram Temple or the G-20 Summit, carry immense significance. The government has relied on trusted retired IAS officers for these key projects. Nripendra Misra: In 2014, the Modi government amended the 1997 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act overnight to ensure that Nripendra Misra, who served as its chairman, could be re-employed in the government. The Act explicitly prohibited a chairman from government employment after serving as chairman. Misra, an IAS officer of the 1967 Batch who retired from service in 2004, was appointed principal secretary to the PM, a post he retained until 2019. After he hung up his boots in 2020, the Centre gave Misra the mammoth task of effectively building the politically and ideologically crucial Ram Temple in Ayodhya as the chairperson of the construction committee under the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. Misra continues to hold the position of the chairman of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library, which has been overhauled and rechristened in the last few years. It was earlier known as the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library. Amitabh Kant: As the G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, an IAS officer of the 1980 batch, was the face of all the deliberations and preparations that went into the G20 Leaders' Summit hosted by India in 2023. An officer of the Kerala cadre, Kant served as the CEO of the NITI Aayog for six years from 2016 to 2022, a period during which the government think-tank conceptualised or spearheaded a slew of government reforms, such as popularising digital payments among MSMEs, reforming medical education, introducing Ayushman Bharat, reforming the Medical Council of India, privatisation of railways, highlighting the need for the strategic sale of Air India, and lateral entry in civil services, among others. Bhaskar Khulbe: Khulbe, another retired IAS officer of the 1983 batch, served in the PMO as the PM's secretary from 2016 to 2020. After his retirement, he was brought in as an adviser in the PMO for two years until 2022. The same year, the Uttarakhand government appointed him officer on special duty to look after the reconstruction works at Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines, signalling the project's significance for the PM. Not unprecedented The trend of appointing trusted retired officers in key ex-officio positions or positions that do not fall within the formal governance framework, including secretaries or joint secretaries, is not new. Under the UPA government, for instance, retired officers such as Pulok Chatterji and T.K. Nair became advisers to PM Manmohan Singh. 'It is certainly the prerogative of the government of the day to appoint retired officers in ex-officio positions,' said former IAS officer and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa. 'Even earlier, retired officers have held positions like the principal secretary to the PM. The government is well within its rights to do so, as long as it does not appoint them in cadre positions,' he said. While this trend often leads to a situation where most officers are outside the 'charmed circle' of power, the idea is perhaps to build a team and continue with it to govern uninterruptedly, Lavasa added. A former IAS officer who retired as secretary in the personnel and training department, Satyananda Mishra, agreed that the trend is not unprecedented. 'The only difference now is one of scale. But this trend has been there since the times of Indira Gandhi when retired officers like P.N. Haksar effectively ran the government,' Mishra said. 'What we see now is only an exaggerated version of the past.' Post-liberalisation, Mishra said, there was a proliferation of tribunals and commissions. For positions in them, the retirement age was 65—a deliberate choice, so officers whose retirement age is 60 can be re-employed for comfortable five-year tenures. However, it is not a trend without dangers, he added. 'One, retired officers who are re-employed are easily dispensable because they do not have the constitutional protections that serving civil servants have,' he said. 'Besides, they are bound to feel more obliged to those who have appointed them.' 'The trend is surely on the rise; we are becoming more and more like the US, where civil servants are picked and chosen by the administration, and civil servants' tenures are seen as coterminous with the government of the day,' he added. 'This is also because, for ordinary citizens, these are non-issues… For them, there is no difference between a serving and a retired officer.' It is also a trend widely found in states. From Awanish Awasthi, the chief adviser to Yogi, to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, chief adviser to Mamata Banerjee, CMs also are increasingly counting on trusted, retired officers in ex-officio positions, allowing them to run the show way beyond their retirement. (Edited by Viny Mishra) Also read: For Modi govt's ill-thought-out policies, civil servants haven't been blamed enough
