Govt to conduct human resource audit to improve efficiency in administration: Drabu

Minister for Finance, Haseeb Drabu chairing a meeting at Srinagar on Thursday.
Minister for Finance, Haseeb Drabu chairing a meeting at Srinagar on Thursday.

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 3: In a significant move, Minister of Finance, Dr Haseeb Drabu, today announced that the J&K Government is going to conduct a human resource audit of the Civil and Police Departments of the State as a measure to improve the efficiency in the administration.
The Minister said this at a high-level meeting convened here today to take stock of human resource management in the State. The meeting was attended by the Chief Secretary, B B Vyas, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary, Commissioner Secretary, GAD, Khurshid Ahmad Shah and Director Codes, Mohammad Rafi Andrabi.
The Finance Minister said the audits, to be conducted by independent human resource firms which will be hired by the General Administration Department (GAD), will provide the State Government a database of the human resource presently employed with Police and various civil administration departments.
“The audit will provide exact details on the employees presently working with the Government and the manpower requirements of various departments. It will go a long way in streamlining the functioning of the Government and ensure that professionals from various fields, who enter the Government service, are deployed in their respective areas of specialization,” he said.
The Finance Minister said the General Administration Department should assume the role of Human Resource Department which assists the Government in building competencies and set a new benchmark for recruitment.  He said many departments and posts at various levels in the State have become redundant due to the changing structures of governance.
“For example, the Commercial Taxes  Department should become a tax advisory department under the GST regime. Similarly, the KAS officers will be placed for certain time with certain departments to build their competencies and wherever they perform upto the mark, they will be deployed in such departments permanently. It will minimize the political interference in transfers and put the system on an auto-mode,” he said and added that some departments which have purely technical functionality need to be de-linked from the Combined Services to groom them on professional lines.
Meanwhile, Drabu cleared a proposal for setting up of four fast-track courts to deal with the cases of extreme violence with women, as per the Supreme Court guidelines.
In a meeting which was attended by Law Secretary Abdul Majid and other officers of the Law and Finance Departments, Dr Drabu said two courts each will come up in Kashmir and Jammu divisions of the State to deal with cases of extreme violence against women.
“These courts will go a long way in speedy disposal and delivering justice in cases of extreme violence against women,” the Finance Minister said.
Pertinently, the Apex Court had ordered setting up of  the fast-track courts to deal with rape cases following the Nirbhaya incident which shook the conscience of the country.