Centre tweaks IAS-IPS cadre allotment rules: Fixing the process, not the paradox.....by KBS Sidhu
Will it deliver the intended all-India character of the two services? Or is it merely a cosmetic tweak—one that can still disadvantage top-ranking general-category candidates seeking their home cadre.
My piece has been carried in ThePrint today (28 January 2026), and it argues that the Government’s revised cadre allocation rules may be procedurally cleaner, but they still do not confront the deeper constitutional contradiction at the heart of the All-India Services.
The Department of Personnel & Training’s revised Cadre Allocation Policy (effective from January 2026) improves the mechanics—clearer timelines, more transparent vacancies and better provisions for PwBD candidates.
Yet, as I argue, these are only refinements at the margins. The unresolved anomaly is structural: the All-India Services were conceived as pan-Indian instruments of national integration, but they function through state-based cadres in which officers spend virtually their entire careers as long-term “residents” of a single allocated state.
That contradiction becomes most visible—and most unjust—in the experience of very high-merit UPSC candidates.
Even top-rankers can be denied their home cadre for reasons wholly beyond their control: if their home state has no Unreserved insider vacancy in that year (only SC/ST/OBC vacancies), they are pushed into outsider allocation by roster arithmetic rather than any deficiency of merit.
The problem is sharpened by the new policy’s Paragraph 3.5, which creates an asymmetry: reserved-category candidates may compete for UR insider vacancies and, if unsuccessful, fall back on category vacancies—flexibility that general-category candidates do not possess.
In effect, a lower-ranked candidate can enjoy more home-cadre optionality than a much higher-ranked general candidate facing the same vacancy mismatch, inverting the meritocratic logic the examination is meant to embody.
The resulting resentment inevitably spills into politics, as seen in the recent Himachal controversy over “outsider” officers—an inappropriate framing, but one that finds traction because it expresses an underlying structural frustration.
The usual defence—that central deputation realises the all-India character—now looks increasingly like a mirage, as deputation grows more competitive and empanelment more opaque, while many officers prefer the stability and influence of their home cadres.
The deeper irony is that state services (PCS) continue to occupy a substantial share of senior state posts, reinforcing local entrenchment even as high-merit AIS candidates may be denied their own home cadres.
The conclusion is straightforward: no amount of procedural tinkering can resolve a constitutional contradiction that the system refuses to name.
January 28, 2026
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KBS Sidhu, Former Special Chief Secretary Punjab
kbs.sidhu@gmail.com
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