House panel on finance seeks task force to fill 38 vacant Dipam positions

The Standing Committee on Finance has flagged the "crippling" 43 per cent vacancy in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), and recommended setting up a task-force to ensure the early filling of all 38 vacant positions. Lamenting that "no tangible progress" has been made in resolving vacancies at DIPAM since the Committee's report presented in March, the panel said, "for a department overseeing a public asset portfolio exceeding Rs 42.76 lakh crore, routine administrative correspondence is grossly inadequate". The Standing Committee, in its report tabled in Parliament in March, had noted that maintaining only 51 officers against a sanctioned strength of 89 - with critical shortages at the Director (11 vacancies) and Under Secretary (8 vacancies) levels - "severely jeopardises" the department's ability to execute complex transactions like the IDBI Bank sale or finalise CPSE MoUs. Such significant manpower shortages in a field requiring highly specialised ..