Revise Recruitment Rules

Widespread irregularities in the area of recruitment to Government vacancies have been a recurring complaint and no satisfactory solution has been found so far. No doubt, we have the Public Service Commission and the State Service Recruitment Board with rules and specific agenda of recruiting to various cadres both gazetted and non-gazetted in the State service. But the Service Rules are nearly a century old and hardly satisfying the requirement of society. Of course, some amendments have been made from time to time when dire need arose but then to say that the corpus of the Service Rules is commensurate with the requirements of contemporary society is not true. Democratic dispensation in the State has moved forward as in the rest of the country. Along with that we have also achieved economic development by developing infrastructure and basic elements of development. The scope of the Government to reach the people and understand their problems has widened fairly. The Government agencies are in a position to extend support and bring out reforms in mitigating the grievances of the people.
In this background it is quite natural that service rules governing the functioning and other interests of the employees should be progressive in letter and in spirit and no ambiguity should be there in interpreting and applying the rules. It is with this purpose in mind that the Government has issued a circular to all the departments to furnish information within ten days about the position of reformed rules formulated and implemented by each department. The circular has also prescribed a format which the departments will take as the guideline. Various technical and practical suggestions have been made for example in entering the seniority record of the cadres. Also certain cadres are recommended for change of nomenclature that offers respectability and is not the hangover of the colonial rule. The status of the employees, their seniority and their privileges etc. all this has to be recorded in a systematized manner. At the same time the departments will ensure that they have strictly followed the rules of promotion, transfer, etc. laid down in the new system. The Administrative Secretaries have been asked to list the number of Recruitment Rules under implementation in the department, names of the Recruitment Rules, last revision of the Recruitment Rules conducted and progress of fresh revision in light of Budget announcement/status. Actually, the Finance Minister had made a commitment to that effect during the last session of the legislature and now it has become necessary to gather the information.
We appreciate the decision of the Government. We are pained when we come to know that the seniority of a Government functionary has been violated knowingly or unknowingly. We are pained when we find that functionaries deserving to be promoted are denied the benefit for one or the other reason. There has to be some logic behind every move of the Government and if the rules are clear and transparent these difficulties can be surmounted easily. That makes the Government function smoothly.

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