It is well beyond comprehension as to why majority of officers of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) should stay away from using the platform of Smart Performance Appraisal Report Recording Online Window ‘SPARROW’ and not submit individual details in order to have their annual performance appraised. Such details, data and relevant particulars as asked for by various but mandatory fields of the said portal or platform, usually are not and cannot be available in full with the General Administration Department, therefore, all reviewee officers are expected to customise with the Personal Information Management System. Such information not forthcoming even after considerable delay, renders the entire appraisal system to a position of triviality and insignificance which is totally unacceptable. Significantly or we may call it even astonishingly, these officers are holding important positions like that of Director General, Director, Managing Director, Administrator, District Development Commissioner, Head of the Department, Special Secretary, Additional Secretary et-al, and as such expected to prove an example for their subordinates and juniors as to how meticulously they observed and paid due regard to Government guidelines, procedures and precedents. On the contrary, when they themselves continuously ignore and as such, pay no heed to such guidelines especially when they were in their own interests because of getting noted and recorded as to how ably, efficiently or poorly they performed during the review period, it appears totally prosaic and in bad taste.
That things should come to such a pass that after several reminders, memos and timelines given for the said purpose by the higher administrative machinery to the defaulting officers, three more days given as a “last opportunity” to them makes things looking in increasingly disparaging and depreciative manner since looking to the positions they hold, such a recourse adopted by the administration does not augur well for the defaulting officers. In fact, the very premise on which the functioning and discharging of duties by these officers of Administrative Services is based is, not only filial obedience of Government orders but enforcing all orders of the Government. It is this cadre which is arms of the Government and when they themselves default, the same needs to be duly recorded in their respective service records and future postings and elevation in grades made inversely related to such defiance.
The story does not end here. The General Administration Department, while issuing the list of such defaulting officers is reported to have erred in the order itself. Does it too need to be emphasised that any order issued from the apex administration department needs proper vetting, shelving, pruning and subjecting to austere test of accuracy?
It may be recalled that we have shared our concern through these columns three months back also when a ‘strong reminder’ was issued to the defaulting officers by the General Administration Department and we had expected officers of such responsible and important positions behaving in an exemplary manner and submitting the requisite information in respect of SPARROW platform but again, we have to critically opine on such an ordinary but very vital issue which does not put the administrative set up in proper expected assertive way where flouting of Government instructions by the ‘instruments’ of the administration is treated as a routine matter. However, we hope these extra days would really be the “last opportunity” within which all the concerned officers shall now submit their complete required information.
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