Congress MLA Ninong Ering on Tuesday raised the issue of the need for a separate All India Service (AIS) cadre for Arunachal Pradesh in the ongoing assembly session. Responding to his question, Chief Minister Pema Khandu said that a resolution adopted in the assembly on 18 October, 2017, seeking a separate cadre for the state had been conveyed to the home affairs ministry with a request for taking necessary action. Currently, Arunachal is manned by IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officers from the AGMUT (Arunachal, Goa, Mizoram, and other Union Territories) cadre, and the tenure of the officers posted in the state is three years.
It is strange that, even though there are BJP governments both at the Centre and in the state, till now the demand for a separate AIS cadre for the state has not been met. There are many states like Manipur, Nagaland, etc, that are smaller than Arunachal but have separate cadres. The lack of a separate cadre hampers the development of the state. The IAS and IPS officers come for a three-year tenure. By the time they start to understand the state, they get transferred out of Arunachal. This directly affects the development plan of the state. Arunachal Pradesh is a sensitive border state which shares international boundaries with Myanmar, Bhutan, and increasingly belligerent neighbours like China. Considering this, the government of India should create a separate AIS cadre for the state at the earliest. The state BJP leadership should put pressure on the central leaders for early creation of a separate cadre.