Irregularities in appointments, promotions detected in vital wing of Planning Deptt

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 8: Glaring irregularities in the appointments and promotions in the Directorate of Economics and Statistics-a vital wing of the Planning, Development and Monitoring Department, have come to the fore thereby raising questions on the credibility of those who remained at the helm of affairs in the Directorate from time to time. In order to look into all the aspects, a three member committee has been constituted with the direction to accomplish the assigned task within a period of 15 days positively.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that these irregularities were committed from time to time since 2000 in blatant violation of rules and number of SROs issued by the Government in order to confer undue benefits upon the ‘blue-eyed’ employees of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics.  The most astonishing aspect is that these irregularities were never allowed to come to the fore during the past 17 years as all the concerned officers and the illegal beneficiaries were hand-in-glove and each and every illegality was committed with monetary consideration.
Finally, these irregularities came to the light recently during the audit by the Finance Department as well as during detailed scrutiny of the cases of officials of the Economics and Statistics Department for various administrative purposes, sources said while disclosing that some officials have been found appointed/promoted without ascertaining their eligibility from time to time in terms of Recruitment Rules notified vide SRO-100 dated February 28, 1975, SRO-252 dated June 27, 1989 and SRO-03 dated January 4, 2005.
“Some of the officials have been found promoted even when they were on probation and didn’t satisfy eligibility norms for promotion”, sources further said, adding some appointment orders under SRO-43 have been found issued without obtaining prior approval from the competent authority in respect of relaxation of age and qualification.
They further disclosed that some of the officials have been given confirmed promotion without ascertaining their eligibility as they had not attained compulsory three years or four years statutory eligibility period from one scale to another particularly in respect of KPO to Junior Statistical Assistant, Junior Statistical Assistant to Statistical Assistant, Statistical Assistant to Statistical Officer and Orderly to Junior Assistant. Some of the persons have been found appointed/promoted conditionally to attain eligibility within next six months. “There are more irregularities of different nature”, sources said
According to the sources, to look into all the aspects of irregularities a three member committee has been constituted with the direction to accomplish the assigned task within a period of 15 days. The committee has been asked to identify all such cases which have deficient period in eligibility required for promotion to the next scale in terms of Recruitment Rules. Moreover, the committee has been directed to recommend any action required to identify and sort out such cases in the light of relevant Recruitment Rules and Government Procedures.
“The Government will have to reverse all illegal promotions and ensure recovery of undue financial benefits if it wants to ensure transparency in the functioning of Economics and Statistics Department, which otherwise is known for providing comfort to blue-eyed employees-both gazetted and non-gazetted for obvious reasons”, sources said, adding “now it is to be seen whether the committee accomplishes the assigned task within the stipulated time-frame as there is a tendency of dragging the important issues in this vital wing of the Planning, Development and Monitoring Department”.
They further said, “besides reversing all such illegal promotions and appointments, it should be ensured that whosoever were part and parcel to the irregularities are taken to task under the law so that nobody dares to indulge in such activities in future”.
When contacted, Director General Economics and Statistics, R A Banday confirmed that glaring irregularities were committed in promotions and appointments. “We will ensure that all such illegal benefits are reversed”, he said while admitting that recoveries in the cases of undue promotions will also be made from the employees.
He, however, could not give any satisfactory reply about the reasons behind non-detection of these irregularities during the past so many years.
Was not the Finance Department conducting such audits earlier?, sources asked while raising several questions about non-detection of these irregularities during such a long period.

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