Bhubaneswar: Inefficiency and doubtful integrity will no more be tolerated in government officials of Odisha. The State Government is going to be tough with them. The General Administration Department has sent a letter to all secretaries of the State Government regarding premature retirement of government servants to weed out officers and employees of doubtful integrity or inefficiency from public service to ensure efficiency in administration.
Henceforth, government employees with doubtful integrity and inefficiency will be subject to retirement if found suitable through a review of their services. A detailed circular has also been sent to all the departments on the procedures to be adopted for the review of the services.
The state government which is on an ambitious path to transform the governance process is trying to make all public servants accountable. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has taken a tough stand on corruption and nepotism. The age old lethargic official practices are being abolished to bring in a transformational change in service delivery. The efforts are directed at bringing in a citizen centric approach to all government services.
According to the General Administration Department Circular, the state government employees who have completed 30 years of service or have attained 50 years of age (whichever is earlier) and those having attained 55 years of age would be reviews for their work and included in the purview of premature retirement plan. While the performance and service records of group-A and group-B officials will be reviewed every quarter by a committee, the performance of group-C and group-D employees will be reviewed twice every year.
One of the criterion to be followed by the committee while reviewing the services includes “While the entire service record of an officer should be considered at the time of review, no employee should ordinarily be retired on grounds of ineffectiveness if his/her service during the preceding five years or where he/she has been promoted to a higher post during that five year period, his/her service in the higher post found to be satisfactory,”. Another criteria is no employee should be retired on grounds of ineffectiveness if he or she is retiring on superannuation within a period of one year from the date of considering of his/her case for premature retirement. The circular asks all departments to maintain a registrar of officials, who are completing 30 years of service or will attain 50 years of age (whichever is earlier) or attain 55 years of age.