Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb 19: Addressing a function after presenting the first-ever “Anubhav” awards to retiring Government officials, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that the Department of Administrative Reforms, Public Grievances and Pensions (ARPG & P) will soon formulate an institutionalized mechanism to engage the various pensioners’ organizations across the country with a motive to ensure that after superannuation, each retiring person’s abilities, experience and expertise are put to optimal use without allowing to go waste.
Pertinent to mention that the, first of its kind, “Anubhav” awards have been instituted by the Department of ARPG & Pensions and the winners of these awards are decided on the basis of a written account of experiences and suggestions submitted by a retiring person during the last eight months of his / her service period.
Lauding the success of the “Anubhav” experiment and congratulating the recipients of the awards, Dr Jitendra Singh said, from now onwards, your “Anubhav” is our “Anubhav” and the written note left by each retiring person will serve as a valuable document for all of us to achieve the goal of good governance. He also assured that some of the suggestions put forward in these written accounts will be shared by the Department with other Ministries as well. He particularly referred to an account written by a lady officer, wherein she had lamented that she was deputed by her department for pursuing PhD course in a particular subject, but after she had successfully completed the PhD, she was never assigned any work related to the subject of her thesis and instead was transferred to another department form where she attained superannuation.
Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that the number of pensioners in the country today far outnumber the number of officials in active service and this has happened as a result of a dramatic change in the country’s socio-economic milieu since the time of independence in 1947, when many of the government officials did not live long enough even to see the day of their retirement. The need of the hour therefore is, he said, to change the very perspective with which we look at the issue of retirement and actively involve the retiring persons in the task of nation building, particularly at a time when most of those who are superannuating from government service around the age of 60 are in full fitness of health and are also at the prime of their experience and expertise in the field of their work or respective profession.
Union Secretary ARPG & P, Devendra Choudhary, while speaking on the occasion, informed about some of the recent reforms brought in by his department. Secretary ARPG Alok Rawat also spoke on the occasion while Joint Secretary (Pension) Vandana Sharma announced the winners of “Anubhav” awards.
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