Bureaucracy in a state of disarray: Officers getting promoted well beyond approved posts

In civil administration, officers are getting promoted in unusually high numbers creating an unbalanced top-heavy hierarchy in the country's bureaucracy. Several top positions of civil administration are occupied beyond their capacity. For example, there are now 309 additional secretaries against 99 posts, and 490 joint secretaries against 370 posts.

This is a dysfunctional structure, according to a number of experts and retired civil administration officers.

How has this irregular structure formed in Bangladesh's civil administration? And how does it affect governance?

In Straight from Star Newsroom, Debjani Shyama discusses the imbalance between posts and their occupancy in the country's bureaucracy with The Daily Star reporter Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary.