Calcutta, May 28: Mamata Banerjee has begun a process targeted at replacing key West Bengal Civil Service officers, who formed a crucial column of support for the Left, with neutral IAS officers.

Within a week of assuming charge, the new government has put 48 WBCS officers on “compulsory waiting for further posting” while replacing another with an IAS officer.

An official said Mamata was aware that the Left had used the WBCS route to fill key posts with loyalists just as in the case of teachers.

“She now wants to shift those among the 1,767 WBCS officers who are in influential posts. Over the years, knowing they were Left supporters, Alimuddin Street had ensured these WBCS officers occupied important posts,” he said.

Senior bureaucrats said that the IAS officers who dissented against the way “the government was run” were “sidelined”, prompting many from the all-India service’s Bengal cadre to opt for central assignments. This is one of the reasons that 89 of the state’s quota of 314 IAS posts lie vacant.

The favoured WBCS officers were mostly made special secretaries — since only IAS officers could be full-fledged secretaries — or were promoted to the IAS cadre or appointed officers on special duty (OSDs) and virtually ran departments.

Most of the about 40 key WBCS officers still occupy their posts — the ones removed so far are mostly personal secretaries of Left ministers, an official said.

These 40 too will be transferred once Mamata finds suitable IAS replacements, a bureaucrat close to the chief minister said. “This is only the start. More will follow soon. Just watch what happens over the next few weeks,” he added.

Some departments that still have WBCS officers as special secretaries or OSDs are finance, PWD, transport, sport and youth affairs, backward classes welfare, tourism, information technology, land and land reforms, and agriculture.

Mamata had herself indicated her struggle to find suitable IAS replacements on Wednesday, saying: “I’m not getting good IAS and IPS officers here. The good ones have all gone to Delhi. I can’t bring them all back…. I will definitely try to bring back those that are willing.”

She has already brought back Santanu Basu, who was her personal secretary in the railways, to join the chief minister’s office (CMO). IAS officer Barun Roy, personal secretary to junior Union minister Mukul Roy, too is likely to join the Bengal government.

Writers’ sources said that among the Bengal cadre officers Mamata wants in her government are Union revenue secretary Sunil Mitra, joint secretary in the PMO Sanjay Mitra, and a secretary in the Union finance ministry, Manoj Pant.

The presence of Union culture secretary Jawhar Sircar at Writers’ today set off a buzz that he would be joining the state as chief secretary. But Sircar, who spent an hour with Mamata, said: “The question of my replacing anyone does not arise. There is an excellent officer (Samar Ghosh) as chief secretary and it is in the better interest of the state that I stay where I am.”

He said he had met Mamata along with joint secretaries Tuktuk Kumar and K.K. Banerjee to discuss the Tagore and Vivekananda birth anniversary celebrations.

As part of the ongoing dismantling process, Mamata has removed Niloy Ghosh, the general secretary of the Left-backed WBCS Officers’ Association, as special secretary in the information and cultural affairs department which she runs herself. Ghosh’s replacement is IAS officer Nandini Chakraborty.

All seven bureaucrats in Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s CMO have been removed, including its joint secretary D.P. Banerjee, a WBCS promotee to the IAS. Among the six others are five WBCS officers and IAS officer Subesh Das, brother of former infotech minister Debesh Das.

Officials said that during the larger part of Left rule, policy decisions were “mostly” drawn up at Alimuddin Street, and IAS officers were expected to “sign on the dotted line”. An official said: “We hope this (partisanship) will change now.”