NEW DELHI, July 31 : A delegation of Central Govt Secretariat employees, including Central Secretariat Service (CSS) Forum and Direct Recruits of Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (LDCE), called on Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh here today and profusely thanked him for ordering and taking personal interest to carry out mass promotion in thousands at different levels, most notably from Assistant Section Officers (ASOs) to Section Officers (SOs).
Dr Jitendra Singh said, it is painful to see certain officials attaining superannuation after spending several decades on the same post without a single promotion. We need to change this trend, he said.
The Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) had, on the instructions of Minister Incharge DoPT Dr Jitendra Singh, recently approved mass promotion of 1,592 officials working in the capacity of ASOs to the post of SOs on adhoc basis with immediate effect.
The Minister had last year ordered about 9,000 mass promotions and prior to that the DoPT granted 4,000 promotions in the preceding three years.
Another 2,000 promotions in ASO and other Grades are in process and hopefully they will get promoted by this year end,” said Dr Jitendra Singh.
The members of the delegation said that the promotions had been expedited on the directions of the Minister Incharge DoPT, Dr Jitendra Singh who personally reviewed the entire process.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen that hardworking and performing officials should be provided with a work friendly environment so that they may give in their best for nation building.
“DoPT has been granting mass promotions to employees in order to motivate them and overcome the problem of long stagnation. Another 2,000 promotions in ASO and other Grades are in process and hopefully they will get promoted by this year end,” said Dr Jitendra Singh.
The Minister said that in the last nine years, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government has periodically reviewed the longstanding stagnation issues in the various Central Ministries that are a legacy of the past due to pending court cases, lack of vacancies in higher grades and other personnel issues.
The Minister said, last year alone about 9,000 mass promotions were made and prior to that the DoPT granted 4,000 promotions in the preceding three years.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Government is concerned about long stagnation in certain cadres and at certain levels where some of the employees working in the lowest rung of administration spend their entire service tenure of 30 to 35 years without getting a single promotion. The DoPT Minister said he has discussed the issue with all the senior officers in the Department and several innovative means have been evolved to avoid stagnation at middle and lower rungs of the administration.
Accusing the earlier UPA government, Dr Jitendra Singh regretted that in a large number of cases, stagnation in promotions was the result of litigations prompted by inappropriate decisions taken or rules twisted to give out of turn promotions to the favoured ones by the then government.
In a few of the 4,000 promotions cleared in recent years, the Government granted promotions despite the cases being sub-judice, by consulting legal experts and making valid provisions for judicial scrutiny, said the Minister.
The orders for mass promotion of these employees belonging to the CSS cadre were issued after several rounds of high-level meetings in DoPT chaired by Dr Jitendra Singh in the preceding months.
Expressing satisfaction that there is an inflow of more talented and efficient recruits in the Government through UPSC and SSC, Dr Jitendra Singh said, in order to bring in the ease of governance as well as objectivity in empanelment, the government has, in the last nine years, improvised upon the procedures so as to ensure that there are no subjective preferences involved in carrying out the promotions.
“Online database has led to greater accountability and efficiency among the Government workforce,” he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh called upon the CSS delegations to open avenues for training of their respective cadres by using Mission Karmayogi platform and organise Chintan Shivirs and workshops to raise credibility at work and the society in general.
“All this is meant not only to ensure effective and timely delivery of outcomes for the public, but also to enable the employees to perform to the best of their ability,” he said.