Dispur ends 're-employment', filly

Office order says 'practice not benefiting government, rather hurting competency at lower levels'

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Aug 7: Realising that re-employment of retired employees - a 'tradition' practiced since decades - have not benefited the government and instead has impacted upon the State's work culture, Dispur has decided to do away with such re-appointments.

The Fince department last week discontinued the services of five senior officers - all re-appointed as Consultants in the department after their retirement. The officers who have been discontinued from service are KC Gayan, AH Mazumdar, Sukumar Deka, Kanu Ranjan Dey Tarafdar and RK Buzarbarua, according to an office order in possession with The Sentinel.

Earlier, in an office memorandum, the Deputy Secretary of the Personnel department stated that in many cases, employees are being re-employed by the departments without prior requisite approval, and proposals are moved for their regularization with retrospective effect.

"It has also been observed that in most of the cases, the re-employment of retired employees does not benefit the government in the long run as reliance on re-employed employees discourages development of competencies of lower level officials to take up higher responsibility," it stated.

The practice of re-employment was common in particularly the Fince department. The system has blocked the way for appointment of fresh people.

The office memorandum said that henceforth, there will not be any re-employment by government departments at any level, except with prior approval of the cabinet in exceptiol circumstances and public interest, duly recommended by the High Level Scrutiny Committee.

In another move, the government has also effected a massive reshuffle of Fince Account Officers in the departments.

It is learnt that a number of FAOs - officers responsible for handling accounts of the departments - have been in the same posts since years. A section of them have been facing allegations of malpractices due to their influence in the departments, in which they had been serving for years together.