Agencies being roped in for similar exercise in other deptts
*Staff rationalization at field offices too in offing
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 16: A total of 400 surplus employees were detected in 10 departments at the Civil Secretariat during the manpower audit while as agencies are being roped in for similar exercise in remaining departments and staff rationalization at field offices for effective human resource management and utilization in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the necessity of conducting manpower audit in each department/organization of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir was felt soon after the bifurcation of erstwhile State into two Union Territories and accordingly the issue was debated in numerous meetings of Committee of Secretaries chaired by the Chief Secretary.
As such an exercise is aimed at assessing the effectiveness of all human resource policies, procedures and activities performed by the individuals working in the departments, the Government, accordingly, directed all the Administrative Departments to undertake manpower audit and ensure effective utilization of human resources available with the departments. Further, stress was laid on the requirement of establishing a continuous monitoring system to ensure optimum utilization of manpower.
Now, the General Administration Department has apprised the Chief Secretary that the manpower audit has initially been undertaken in 10 major departments at the Civil Secretariat level and during the exercise 400 surplus employees were identified and they will be deployed in the field offices shortly, sources informed.
“These surplus employees have been detected on the basis of usage of e-office recently launched in the Civil Secretariat”, they disclosed, adding “the General Administration Department has come to know that these employees had either no work or very little to do especially after electronic mode of handling official work was started”.
Stating that department wise lists of these employees have already been prepared, they said that exercise is going to identify the field offices which are in the dire need of manpower to handle different types of work especially in the light of the fact that in the districts e-office has yet not been launched, adding “this is the first major step of the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir towards human resource management”.
“As far as manpower audit in remaining departments at the Civil Secretariat is concerned, a committee of bureaucrats which was constituted to oversee this vital exercise has identified three agencies to assist in this task and formal agreement will be signed within next few days”, they said, adding “if 400 surplus employees can be detected in only 10 departments what could be the status in respect of remaining 36 departments at the Civil Secretariat level can be easily gauged”.
“Though the University of Jammu and University of Kashmir had expressed desire to conduct the manpower audit of the Government employees yet the same was not considered by the committee of bureaucrats on the ground that these varsities have no expertise in handling this assignment”, sources said.
Not only in the conduct of manpower audit of the remaining departments at the Civil Secretariat level these agencies will also assist in staff rationalization at field offices and Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta has asked the General Administration Department to conclude both the exercise as early as possible to achieve the objective of better human resource management and utilization.
“There are many functions that take place in any department such as recruitment, deployment, training, promotions etc and manpower audit will help to improve these functions by identifying the available prospects so that the departments can exploit it and become more successful”, sources said, adding “the manpower audit also serve as a tool for enhancing the performance of available manpower for better outcomes”.
It is for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir that serious attention is being paid towards manpower audit. Similar announcements were also made by previous Governments but the exercise remained confined to the official files only.
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