A senior official of the Karnataka Forest Service received his promotional orders to the cadre of Indian Forest Service a day before his retirement.
The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change issued a notification on May 30, , 2022 promoting 29 officials of the Karnataka State Service cadre to IFS cadre with ‘’immediate effect’’. This was based on inclusion of their names in the Select List for the year 2013-2020 by the Selection Committee in its meeting held on February 15, 2022.
T. Venkatesh, who was the Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF), was one among them. While the notification promoting him was issued on May 30, his last working day was May 31 when he attained superannuation on attaining the retirement age as per the Government rules.
Though the promotional order issued on Monday evening brought him something to cheer, Mr.Ventakesh – who had served in the department for 38 years - could savour it only for a day as he was set to retire on Tuesday evening.
He said the file containing names of the officials eligible for promotion moved from State to Centre after the panel notification was issued. This is followed by other formalities and the entire process took nearly 3 years, he added. ‘’I joined the service as a Range Officer in 1984 and got my promotion as Assistant Conservator of Forests in 2005 after which I became the DCF’’, said Mr. Venkatesh.
He said professionally it was fully satisfying as it entailed working for the welfare of wildlife, environment and forest conservation. But the same could not be said with regard to promotions and growth and in case of Mr. Venkatesh it took 21 years to get his first promotion from that of an RFO to ACF due to technical reasons. This is because in 1970, the cadre of 137 surveyors was changed to that of RFO and until they received further promotions, the opportunities for others below them was locked and Mr.Venkatesh was one of them.
