OdishaPlus Bureau
In what could be a major step towards a corruption-free establishment, the Odisha Government has decided to go for premature retirement of employees of doubtful integrity or inefficiency from public service. The object is to ensure efficiency in administration.
The General Administration and Public Grievance department has issued a circular in this regard to all the secretaries asking them to weed out officers and employees of doubtful integrity or inefficiency from public service.
According to the notification, employees who have completed 30 years of service or have attained 50 years of age, whichever is earlier, and those who have attained the age of 55, will come under the purview of this process. Performances of such state government employees belonging to Group A, B, C and D categories will be reviewed by committees every three months.
The secretary of the administrative department is also empowered to constitute internal committees to scrutinize all the cases to be reviewed in each quarter and finalize the specific cases to be reviewed. The committee will recommend retirement of the employees whose integrity are doubtful or are found to be ineffective, the circular said adding that the basic consideration of identifying such employees should be fitness/ competence of the employee to continue in the post which he/she is holding.
While the entire service record of an officer should be considered at the time of review, no employee should ordinarily be retired on the ground of ineffectiveness, if his service during the preceding 5 years or where he has been promoted to a higher post during that 5 years period, his service in the higher post, has been found satisfactory.
Consideration is ordinarily to be confined to the preceding 5 years or to the period in the higher post, in case of promotion within the period of 5 years, only when retirement is sought to be made on the ground of ineffectiveness. Further, the notification says, no employee should be retired on grounds of ineffectiveness if he is retiring on superannuation within a period of one year from the date of consideration of the case. Nonetheless, in a case where there is a sudden and steep fall in the competence, efficiency or effectiveness of an officer, it would be open to review his case for premature retirement in the year preceding retirement.
While this decision to weed out inefficiency and corruption is laudable, it remains to be seen how efficiently and effectively it is implemented.
