NEW DELHI: Taking voluntary initiative to support families of security personnel who lost their lives in anti-naxal or anti-terror operations or maintaining law and order, IAS officers will adopt all such families to ensure that their children get good education and other family members get timely financial assistance/compensation that is due to them under government's compensatory policy Proposing an institutional arrangement for this purpose, an association of IAS officers from across the country has decided that each member of this premier all-India service will adopt one family of the martyred security personnel (defence, central armed police forces and state police) and handhold them as a pillar of support for 5-10 years of period. The adopted family may preferably be from the state (cadre) to which the officer belongs to."The officer will not be required to provide any direct financial assistance to the adopted family, but support and handhold its members on a sustained basis so that they live with a sense of security and assurance that the country is taking care of them in their hours of crisis and tragedy", said Sanjay Bhoosreddy, honorary secretary of the Indian Civil and Administrative Service (Central) Association.Initially, about 600 to 700 young officers of past four batches (2012 to 2015) will be asked to adopt at least one family in the area of their posting. The officers (mostly SDM, additional district magistrate or district magistrate-level) will approach such families within their area of posting and offer themselves as facilitators to help them (families) get their dues like pension, gratuity or allotment of services like petrol pump, jobs or assist their children in getting school admission or getting them trained in specific skills under the government's Skill Indiaor Digital India Programme. If the dependent family members are interested in starting some sort of business or a Start-up, the IAS officers will also help them out through financial institutions."Senior officers, or those from state civil services, can also adopt such families voluntarily," said Bhoosreddy, a joint-seecretary level IAS officre who is currently posted here as a chief vigilance officer of the MMTC - a central PSU."We are requesting the state governments and the central government to issue necessary instructions in this regard to all concerned so that this arrangement gets institutionalised at the earliest. The state governments have already been asked to share with the Association the details of such families," he said, adding similar details will also be sought from the defence ministry or Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) like BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP or others.He noted that the influence of the IAS officers on the local administrative machinery can be "positively channelized to support and help the families of the martyred soldier in an effective and sustained manner."