How vacancies and relentless reshuffles are weakening India’s administrative backbone

India faces not one but two administrative crises, and their combined effect is far greater than the sum of their parts. As of January 2024, nearly 1,300 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) positions remain vacant out of an authorised strength of 6,877, a 19% shortfall that has persisted for over a decade. Even officers, who are in post, face chronic instability. Last year, 62 officers were transferred in a single month in Rajasthan. In Madhya Pradesh, around 325 transfers occurred over 20 months in 2024 and 2025, particularly in senior secretariat positions. The transfer carousel continues to spin into 2026. The year opened with sweeping bureaucratic reshuffles at both the central and state levels. 

At the close of 2025, the Appointments Committee cleared more than 40 senior IAS transfers across central ministries. Days later, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) transferred 49 AGMUT cadre (covering Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and union territories) officers, one of the most extensive reshuffles affecting Delhi, Puducherry, Goa and the North-East. 

State governments followed suit: Madhya Pradesh moved 26 IAS officers on January 18, Punjab transferred 20 IAS officers just last week, while late 2025 saw major reshuffles in Uttar Pradesh (46 officers), Rajasthan (48 officers), Bihar (36 officers), Gujarat (26 officers) and Haryana (20 officers).

There may be plausible reasons for such reshuffling. However, when combined with the constrained capacity of the IAS cadre, frequent mass transfers create a vicious cycle that undermines our nation’s development capacity. Vacancies compel remaining officers to shoulder multiple responsibilities, intensifying pressure for further transfers, whether to "reward" overburdened loyalists or to redistribute unmanageable workloads.

At the same time, frequent transfers discourage officers from committing to complex, long-term projects, eroding administrative effectiveness and magnifying the impact of vacancies. The result is an administrative system running at diminished capacity and continuity: a double deficit that India's scale and ambition can ill-afford.

A closer examination of publicly available data on the IAS system reveals a troubling pattern: despite adding 651 officers over a decade, vacancies declined by only 170. This reflects a structural imbalance: annual recruitment of roughly 180 officers barely exceeds yearly attrition of about 160. Consequently, the vacancy rate has fallen by just 4.1 percentage points over ten years. 

In 2016, India had 6,396 authorised posts but only 4,926 officers in post, leaving 1,470 vacancies — a 23% shortfall. By 2021, despite the authorised strength rising to 6,746, vacancies had increased to 1,515. The situation improved only marginally thereafter, declining to 1,472 vacancies in 2022 and standing at 1,300 today. Even now, nearly one-fifth (1%) of all sanctioned IAS posts remain unfilled.

IAS vacancies are unevenly distributed, and economically consequential. For example, Maharashtra, India's largest state economy, runs with 89 vacant posts, effectively losing an entire mid-sized state's administrative capacity. Bihar, the country's second most populous state, faces a staggering shortfall of 32% empty posts. Kerala, despite its relatively prosperous economy, runs with 34% of posts unfilled, the highest vacancy rate among major states.

If vacancies represent missing capacity, transfers represent squandered capacity. Data from the Department of Personnel and Training reveal stark variations in officer tenure across states. In Kerala, senior IAS officers at the Secretary rank average just 10 months per posting. Haryana fares only marginally better, at 11 months. Even at the Centre, under the AGMUT cadre, officers serve an average of 22 months.

The human toll of this transfer culture is exemplified by Ashok Khemka, who was transferred 57 times over 34 years — an average of one transfer every six months. While Khemka is an outlier, the broader pattern is systemic. Management research consistently shows that leadership turnover costs organisations six to nine months of productivity. In the private sector, chief executive officers typically stay in position for years. Yet IAS officers, entrusted with budgets and responsibilities that often exceed those of corporate leaders, face average tenures well under two years in many states.

Minimum tenure

By comparison, Singapore posts administrative officers for three to five years while South Korea mandates minimum tenures enforced by independent boards. On the other hand, India is attempting to run a Rs 320 lakh crore economy with almost one-fifth of its administrative leadership vacant and the remainder rotating every year. No private sector organisation would tolerate this and no high-growth economy can sustain it.

To emerge from this crisis, strict enforcement of structural reforms is essential. The government’s recent proposal to raise annual IAS recruitment from 180 to 220 officers is necessary but far from sufficient. The Supreme Court mandated a minimum two-year tenure for certain civil servants back in 2013, a directive that has gone largely unenforced for over a decade. 

Rather than relying on half-measures, annual recruitment should be increased to 250–300 officers for at least ten years to offset attrition and stabilise the cadre. Building on the Supreme Court’s guidance, we recommend mandating a three-year minimum tenure for IAS officers through autonomous Civil Services Boards. At the same time, systemic reforms such as faster promotion cycles, data-driven officer allocation and mandatory public justification for transfers before the completion of minimum tenure should be implemented to strengthen the administrative system from the ground up.

India’s ambition of becoming a developed nation cannot rely on policy intent and capital alone. It ultimately depends on the state’s capacity to execute. An administrative system plagued by chronic vacancies and relentless transfers lacks the continuity, institutional memory and accountability that complex development demands. Rebuilding the stability and strength of the IAS cadre would honour Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision of the civil services as India’s “steel frame,” ensuring it is resilient enough to bear the weight of a developed nation.

(Kanadpriya Basu is Founder at ArrowsUP Innovation & Adjunct Faculty at Costello Business School, George Mason University, USA. Subho Majumdar is Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. The authors acknowledge the inputs of Binod Kumar, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, School & Higher Education, Government of West Bengal, in the preparation of this article.)