New Retirement Age To Stall Pmo Appointment

The raising of retirement age for government servants from 58 years to 60 is likely to kick up dust in the Prime Ministers Office where a news agency journalist, Ashok Tandon, is set to be appointed as the officer on special duty from May 15.

Tandon was tipped to take over as the principal information officer to the Government of India after the retirement of incumbent S Narendra. Narendra, who would have retired on May 31, would now retire after two years as per yesterdays Cabinet decision.

The new retirement age is applicable to persons retiring on or after May 1.

An aide to the Prime Minister yesterday confirmed that Tandons appointment was in the process and would take place before May 15.

The decision is unlikely to be reversed as the clearance for the appointment has come to the Prime Minister from the highest echelons of the BJP.

Since the PIO became a cadre post in the early Eighties, the appointment must come through the Indian Information Service (IIS).

Now that Narendra has got a fresh lease of life, the government would have to transfer him from his current position if they are keen to accommodate Tandon. This may cause resentment in the IIS cadre which is already resisting another important information position, information advisor to the Prime Minister, going to a non-IIS person.

If the government opts to avoid this controversy and decides to accommodate Tandon elsewhere, the obvious option is the post of information advisor to the Prime Minister.

Even this would not be too easy, as it appears now. According to a Vajpayee aide, the Prime Minister has never felt the need for an information advisor.

In the absence of an IA, his political advisor, Pramod Mahajan has been briefing the media every evening.

In case Tandon is accommodated as an IA to Vajpayee, it would be Tandon who would be interacting with the Press on the Prime Ministers behalf. This might again lead to complications with the government speaking in three different voices that of the PIO, the IA and the political advisor to the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister had, only a month back, resisted appointing an IA when he adjusted another party friendly journalist Sundhindra Kulkarni into the PMO as director, research. Sudhindras appointment was also cleared from the highest level of the BJP.