Centre told to fill vacancies in IAS, CBI & govt depts
A parliamentary panel has asked the Centre to fill up vacancies in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), judiciary, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Central Information Commission (CIC) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The department-related standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice presented two reports on demands for grants for 2020-21 to the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
The committee recommended grouping of ministries into clusters like ‘rural cluster, ‘social cluster’ and ‘financial cluster’, and assign civil servants with suitable domain knowledge to specific clusters.
“Once assigned to a particular sector, the civil servant will spend the rest of his career within the sector concerned,” it said. The committee said this would “enable civil servants to acquire skills, expertise and professional excellence in a particular domain.” The committee expressed concern at the shortage of 1,494 IAS officers. It has backed promotion of ‘lateral entrants’, who are contractual, to retain the best talent in the civil services.
The committee observed that the ‘360-degree performance appraisal of civil servants’, based on the assessment by an expert committee and feedback from various stakeholders and juniors, should not harm honest and deserving civil servants who enforce discipline and performance.
The committee, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bhupender Yadav, called for reorienting the training curriculum to make civil servants ‘emotionally intelligent’.
It asked the Centre to fill the 1,281 vacancies in the CBI. Taking note of the allocation of ~802 crore for the CBI against the projection of ~1,386 crore, the committee said fund constraints should not impede the CBI from discharging its mandate effectively. It recommended higher allocation.
It said ~9.32 trillion is locked in tax disputes on account of 89,398 appeals pending in the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. It called for filling up of 41 vacancies in the tribunal out of total strength of 126.
The committee also recommended linking Aadhar card number with voter identity card to eliminate multiplicity of voter card.
It noted that 48,000 cases are still pending disposal in Central Administrative Tribunal because of human resource and infrastructure deficit. It recommended a pre-litigation conciliation mechanism to resolve the grievances of government servants.
For judiciary, the committee noted that judicial delays cost 0.5 per cent of GDP of the country. It said the increase in pendency cases was a cause for worry. Pendency increased 8 per cent, 29 per cent, and 21 per cent in the Supreme Court, high courts and subordinate courts, respectively, since 2018. The committee asked for filling up 397 vacancies of high court Judges, which is 37 per cent of the sanctioned 1,079 posts. There are 5,146 vacant posts of judicial officers in the subordinate courts, accounting for 21 per cent of the total 24,018.