Annual increment

Grant of annual increment to Government employees is taken as a matter of right. The practice has been that annual increment is withheld very rarely. Even in rarest of rare cases, the aggrieved has the right to ask for redress of his grievance. The Seventh Pay Commission has recently released its recommendations that favour release of another Dearness Allowance installment to the Government employees. However, for the first time the Pay Commission has delinked annual increment from the rights of an employee and made it conditional to performance. The essence of this recommendation is that efficiency and sense of responsibility among Government employees need to be streamlined as an important ingredient of good and efficient governance.  Employees of all categories shall have to prove their efficiency and performance. Therefore, the employees will have to revaluate their performance, which is the criterion laid down by the Seventh Pay Commission for the employee to claim annual increment.
In fact, the Commission does not aim at inflicting punitive punishment on defaulting employees. The purpose is to find ways and means of enhancing efficiency, performance and delivery for which the benchmark is “very good” from just “good”. No doubt, the Government employees nurse the perception that grant of Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP), although subject to the employee attaining the laid down threshold of performance, is taken for granted. Actually, it will no more be the same after the recommendation of the Seventh Pay Commission is accepted. The Commission also suggests Performance Related Pay (PRP) for all categories of civil employees. Not only that, the Commission is also proposing withholding of annual increments in the case of those employees who are not able to meet the benchmark either for MACP or a regular promotion within the first 20 years of their service.
The point to be elaborated is that the Government has ordered reservation for various categories of Government employees. This means that a specific quota of vacancies is to be filled by the reserved category candidates. They have to go through the competitive process but within their own category. It has been found that one bad result of reservation policy is that it breeds inefficiency and lethargy. The employees coming from reserved categories consider that their promotion is a matter of routine. The recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission are a deterrent against this wrong notion. In a sense this is efficiency bar. The bar did exist and in each grade the level of bar called efficiency bar has been stipulated. However, that was very rarely made use of in the case of inefficient and insensitive functionaries. Now that the functionary has to give proof of his efficiency and performance before he claims annual increment or promotion to higher cadres, the efficiency bar has been provided with teeth through the new dispensation.
Raising of the benchmark of efficiency from good to very good is both a deterrent and an incentive. A Government employee failing to reach the bench mark and remaining complacent with “good” will have little hope of easy promotion. This again is a right step in the direction of good governance. The number of central Government employees is around 47 lakh.  The Commission feels that PRP for Central Government employees can provide credible framework to drive performance across Ministries or departments. An incremental adaptation of the proposed recommendations within the existing system should be possible. Therefore, there appears no need for designing a new system.
We believe that there is a realization in responsible Government circles that the level of efficiency in administration has come down considerably. It feels the need of streamlining the system and the new recommendations have been made with that objective. We appreciate institutional reform in administrative system and inculcation of a sense of responsibility among the huge segment of Government employee in our country.
After understanding the philosophy and methodology of bringing in reforms in service rules in the light of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, we feel that these recommendations should be made applicable to the State of Jammu and Kashmir also. We are also afflicted with inefficiency and lethargy on the part of Government employees to a large scale. The State Government is trying to stem the corruption as far as possible. Along with that it is of equal importance to infuse efficiency and performance among the Government employees of the State also.

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