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The Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) has declined Minister of State Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore’s proposal to ‘depute’ Akshay Kumar Rout as chief of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.
Rathore wanted Rout, an Indian Information Service officer who is currently additional director-general of news in Doordarshan to be posted as the IIMC director-general. He had proposed that Rout be appointed under central government deputation with an exemption to his mandatory three-year cooling off period.
Rout, was earlier director general (information education & communication) in the Election Commission of India and was sent back to his parent cadre in October 2014. After every period of deputation outside an officer’s parent cadre (in this case, Indian Information Service), the bureaucrat has to serve for three years in his or her cadre before being considered for another deputation outside it.
He would then get a fixed tenure of three years, extendable by another two years.
For the IIMC chief’s selection, a committee comprising I&B secretary Sunil Arora and journalists Swapan Dasgupta and Rajat Sharma will take the final call.
The government, not keen on continuing with current DG Sunit Tandon, placed an advertisement in July to replace him. Tandon’s tenure ends in November.
