The Bengal cabinet on Monday decided to send a letter to the Centre demanding an increase in the number of IAS and IPS officers for the state.

The decision comes at a time the state administration's decentralisation plan by carving out smaller administrative units from the larger districts is getting affected by the shortage of civil service officers.

“We will need more officers here as the number of districts have increased here over the past few years and there are plans to create some more districts in the near future.… The cabinet has decided that the chief secretary will write to the Centre urging it to increase the cadre strength of IAS and IPS officers for the state," Partha Chatterjee, state industries minister, said at Nabanna on Monday after a cabinet meeting.

Sources in Nabanna said that the state had a sanctioned strength of 377 IAS officers and 300-odd IPS officers, who are available from the national pool of all-India service officers. The Centre uses a formula to distribute the officers among the states every year.

The Bengal government has repeatedly communicated to the Centre that the number of officers available in the state is much lower than the sanctioned strength, which is often cited as one of the reasons for the state’s reluctance to allow officers to opt for central deputation. “But this is the first time that the cabinet discussed the issue and decided to flag it formally,” said a source.

A senior officer at Nabanna said that the decision to write the letter was taken as the shortage of officers had begun to affect administration after new districts like Alipurduar, Jhargram and Paschim Burdwan were created. Plans are afoot to curve out three more districts from South and North 24-Parganas.

Once new districts are created, the administration will need more IAS and IPS officers to fill the posts of DMs, SPs, ADMs, ASPs, SDOs and SDPOs.

“The state government has already created more posts in the WBCS (executive) and WBPS cadres, who are usually posted in the block and sub-division offices. That increase, however, will not suffice and that's why the cabinet decided to write for more IAS and IPS officers,” said an official.

Another section of officials, however, think that the letter is part of a strategy to mount pressure on the Centre in the backdrop of Delhi's proposal to amend the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, which would allow the Centre to post any IAS or IPS officer on central deputation, bypassing the states’ reservations.