Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Sept 18: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, who is also the Minister In-Charge Personnel / GAD, said here today that the transition of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh to Union Territories will be smooth and that there will be no Cadre issues pertaining to IAS or any other Services. Dispelling apprehensions, if any, he said, the arrangement or mechanism which finally evolves, after due deliberations, will be in the best interest of all the stakeholders.
Dr Jitendra Singh was addressing the annual conference of Chief Secretaries/ Principal Secretaries (Personnel/ GAD) of all State/UT Governments, organised by Union Ministry of Personnel, here today. Union Secretary DoPT, C. Chandramouli, Union Secretary DARPG & Pensions K. V. Eapen and senior officers of the Centre and UT/State Governments were present at the conference. The Conference aimed to deliberate upon the issues relating to personnel management of All India Service officers.
Speaking after an initial interaction with the officers, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken several initiatives to provide conducive working atmosphere to the officers so that they could perform to the best of their potential. The Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 was amended after 30 years, last year, to give further protection to honest and performing officers, he said. But, at the same time, the Modi Government has been very strict in dealing with officials involved in cases of corruption or with a record of poor performance, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh quoted examples of initiatives which included self-attestation, abolition of interviews for recruitment to non-gazetted posts, doing away with the obsolete rules and grievance redressal system, among others. The Minister said that the nature of PM’s Awards for Excellence has been entirely changed in the recent years. Now the civil servants are being rewarded for implementation of flagship programmes of the Government, with a large number of participation by the District Collectors, he said.
Referring to Government’s decision to post young IAS officers as Assistant Secretaries in the Central Ministries in order to provide them exposure about the functioning of the Government, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this will enable them to familiarise themselves with the Centre’s flagship schemes and implement the same when they go to their respective States. Also, this may help the newly appointed young IAS officers to have more balanced perspective before the go to the State, he said. There have been many out of box experiments and initiatives by the Government, he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the modern technology has been put to maximum use by the Government. He said that Apps have been developed for serving officers, Pensioners, for filing RTI, etc. He also spoke about introduction of minimum pension, Pension Adalats, pre-retirement counselling, among others.
The Minister appealed that the spirit of Modi Government should reach to all States/UTs and they should emulate the best practices adopted by the Centre. He assured full cooperation and coordination from the Centre to ensure speedy and transparent administration across the country.
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