Committee of bureaucrats fails to complete assigned task
No deliberations, vital issue remains confined to files
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 12: Though regular training of the officers is imperative to bridge the ‘competency gaps’ and help them to respond more efficiently and effectively to the needs of the citizens yet Jammu and Kashmir doesn’t have comprehensive training policy for Administrative Service officers because of absolute non-seriousness at all the levels of the Government.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that over a period of time human resource management function has undergone a significant change across the country and Union Government as well as several States have been laying required focus on transforming the civil services to move to a strategic human resource management system, which would look at the individual as a vital resource to be valued, motivated, developed and enabled to achieve the mission and objectives.
Within this transformational process, it is essential to match individuals’ competencies with the jobs they have to do and bridge competence gaps for current and future roles through training. Not only the Union Government and many States have developed training policy for the officers of their respective civil services even enough focus is being laid on updating the training module after regular intervals.
“However, in Jammu and Kashmir there is absolutely no focus on having comprehensive training policy for J&K Administrative Service officers”, they said, adding after clearance of State Civil Services exams and their initial training no focus is laid on further comprehensive training of J&K Administrative Service officers after regular intervals, which otherwise is imperative to bridge the ‘competency gaps’.
Early this year, the necessity of having comprehensive training policy for the officers of the J&K Administrative Service was felt at some quarters in the State Government and accordingly it was decided to assign the task to a committee of bureaucrats.
Thereafter, the Government vide Order No.815 dated June 28, 2017 constituted a committee headed by Commissioner/Secretary to Government, Finance Department to devise a comprehensive training policy for the officers of Administrative Service. It was also mentioned in the order that such a policy will be mandatorily linked with the promotions of the J&K Administrative Service officers to various levels on the pattern of the policy in vogue in the Government of India for the officers of All India Service.
The committee comprising of Administrative Secretary of General Administration Department, Information Department and representative from Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development was asked to hold deliberations on the subject and submit report to the Government within a period of two months—by August 28, 2017.
However, till date only one meeting of the committee has been convened that too without any tangible results despite the lapse of nearly four months, sources said while disclosing that the committee has yet not reached to a conclusion as to what should be the training module/curriculum and after how much duration the training of Administrative Service officers should be conducted.
“The dilly-dallying approach of the committee is notwithstanding the fact that in the Government order it was explicitly mentioned that panel shall be free to co-opt any officer or expert in its deliberations”, they regretted, adding “due to slackness on the part of committee the noble idea of having comprehensive training policy for J&K Administrative Service officers has remained confined to the official files”.
When contacted, some members of the committee confirmed that no conclusion could be drawn till date. One member of the committee has also superannuated from the Government service and he is required to be replaced by another officer in order to take the assigned task to the logical conclusion. They expressed inability to specify the time-frame for coming out with comprehensive training policy.
It is pertinent to mention here that after initial two years training at respective academies, the officers of All India Services particularly IAS are given mandatory training after 7 years, 15 years and 24 years of service so as to enable them to respond more efficiently and effectively to the needs of the citizens and implement the policies and programmes of the Government.
But there is no such training for J&K Administrative Service officers, which otherwise is the need of the hour.
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