CS for investing consistently in human capital to improve service delivery

Jammu: Reiterating the need for paying urgent attention to human resource management and development, Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam Monday called for comprehensive measures to bring up a highly motivated workforce in the State Government Departments to attain the desired levels of service delivery.
“We have to ensure consistent and sustained investment in the development of human capital in Government, which in turn will lead to building motivation, responsibility and leadership,” Chief Secretary said at a meeting of the Nodal Officers designated in the Administrative Departments to make recommendations for effective personnel management in their respective departments.
Principal Secretary, Planning, Development & Monitoring, Rohit Kansal and Commissioner Secretary General Administration Department (GAD), Hilal Ahmad Parray were also present at the meeting.
He said the Government’s strategy on human resource development involves career progression, capacity building and promoting professionalism which in turn would ensure better results from the employees to ensure speedy movement forward on the Governor Administration’s mission on Delivering Good Governance.
Calling for conducting functional audit and organizational review of each Department, Chief Secretary said every Department should formulate a meaningful and pragmatic Mission Statement and frame well defined job chart for each and every official along with modalities for delegation of powers to lower level functionaries. “It is also to be ensured that the delegated powers are exercised,” he said and added that the civil services must shift focus from being a provider and regulator to that of a facilitator so that the people feel the change.
Chief Secretary said reinforcement of the personnel management in various Departments has to be expedited and to begin with all the Departments should immediately get down to prepare the seniority lists, both of non-gazetted and gazette cadre, review the recruitment rules to bring these in tune with the existing functional requirement of staff in each department and conduct Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meetings at the earliest. “I am stunned to learn that in one of the line Departments no DPC has been conducted for the past more than 40 years,” he said and added that such a slipshod approach towards the employees is not only appalling, but criminal.
He directed that finalization of seniority lists, should be immediately followed with the conduct of intra-departmental DPCs for non-gazetted cadre while the State Public Service Commission would be requested to expedite DPCs in case of gazette cadre to address the issues of stagnation and create avenues for career progression of the employees.
Chief Secretary said the human resource management would also require restructuring and reorganization of some Departments and all the proposals regarding finalization and publishing of seniority lists, updating of recruitment rules, conduct of DPCs and restructuring and reorganization of various Departments should be finalized by 2 December 2018. “There is also a pressing need for doing away with such posts in the Departments which have become redundant over a period of time and have outlived their utility. Such posts need to be re-designated in tune with the present-day functional requirement of the Department,” he said.
He said one of the important areas to improve quality of service delivery is to ensure stability of tenure to officials as frequent transfers affect both the motivation of officials and the quality of service delivery