Chandigarh's IAS cadre has achieved administrative enlightenment: a government composed entirely of Secretaries, where decisions flow majestically from top to top.
A Government of India notification dated January 3, 2025 reveals that Chandigarh has 11 sanctioned IAS posts — of which only five were meant to sit at Secretary rank. Reality: 12 IAS officers, all at Secretary rank, none serving as Director or Joint Secretary, the grades that actually implement policy. The Deputy Commissioner simultaneously holds charge as Secretary, Industry. The Municipal Commissioner doubles as Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayats. Through years of bureaucratic drift, the city of 12 lakh people has assembled what administrative experts are calling a top-heavy system with a hollow middle — a measured way of saying there is no middle. Actual work has been redistributed to contractual staff, since the IAS cadre is apparently too senior to process files. The Union Territory is now a place where every officer is a Secretary and decisions, in theory, flow downward — into a void.