New IAS recruits to be familiarised with GST, Aadhaar and BHIM app

More than 175 newly-recruits of the All officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)  will be given exposure to the Centre’s flagship programmes, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app for cashless transactions and Aadhaar.

The officers will be posted as assistant secretaries in different central government departments, except the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), from 3 July  to 29 September.

This is a part of an initiative started by the government to groom bureaucrats at the Centre before they move to their respective cadre states.

The IAS are allotted cadres which could either be a state or group of states. The officers are supposed to start their career in their respective cadre states. The assistant secretaries have been allocated work relating to flagship programmes or initiatives of the ministry concerned. They will also be given exposure to the government’s important initiatives such as the GST with particular reference to Saksham (a technological system by the Central Board of Excise and Customs), Constitutional amendments, rules and regulations, working of the GST council and GST Network, the information technology backbone of the GST, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

These officers will also be given exposure on the move towards “less cash economy” with emphasis on digital transactions such as unified payments interface, Aadhaar enabled payment systems and BHIM , it said.

“Each ministry and department is already taking action for smooth implementation of the GST in their area of work as well as to promote digital transactions. The assistant secretaries must be fully involved in these activities of the ministry, DoPT said.

The officers have been grouped into nine sectors- agriculture and allied sector, transport and communications, energy and environment, health, sanitation and urban development, education and social development, finance and corporate affairs, commerce and industry, governance and crises management. They will be mentored by senior secretaries.