KOLKATA: The state government will soon urge the Centre to increase the deployment of IAS and IPS officers in West Bengal as it is unable to set up new districts due to a severe shortage of such officers.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi to write a letter in this regard to the Centre after a discussion at the cabinet meeting at Nabanna on Monday.
The cabinet has unanimously approved setting up a Committee of Secretaries headed by Dwivedi to expedite the recruitment process of WBPS and WBCS officers in the state.
"There are 42 Lok Sabhas in Bengal. A number of our neighbouring states that has a lesser number of Lok Sabhas have more districts than us. As we are planning to increase the number of districts we need an adequate number of IAS and IPS officers. So, we are writing to the Centre to provide more officers," state Parliamentary Affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said.
According to a senior Nabanna official, the state government plans to create new districts by bifurcating the existing ones in order to provide better facilities to people. However, the dearth of IAS/IPS officers is preventing the government to go ahead in this matter.
Currently, there are 286 and 281 IAS and IPS officers respectively in West Bengal against the sanctioned strength of 378 and 347 officers.
Bengal presently has 23 districts with the Mamata Banerjee government carving out four new districts since 2011 when it came to power for the first time.
According to sources, the state government plans to set up three more districts namely Sunderbans, Basirhat and Alipore by carving out North and South 24-Parganas.
The proposed Sunderbans district is likely to be formed with Gosaba, Basanti and Kultali areas in South 24-Parganas and Hingalganj and Sandeshkhali in North 24-Parganas. Next, Alipore might be carved out of adjoining pockets of Kolkata in South 24-Parganas and some areas of Diamond Harbour while proposed Basirhat will be formed with Basirhat and Bangaon sub-divisions in North 24-Parganas.