Officers’ Foreign Tours: Dispur Imposes Curbs

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The State Finance Department is taking strict measures on granting approval to officers going on foreign tours. The department has already formed a screening committee headed by the Chief Secretary for approving such tours.

The committee has set a few terms and conditions for approving officers’ foreign tours. Various departments and ministers heading them have also been requested to take the bare minimum number of officers whose presence is indispensable in a foreign tour. The committee has also suggested departments to minimize the number of foreign tours by getting works done through video conferencing, exchange of letters and other means. It says that departments should propose only the essential foreign tours that cannot be avoided.

The Finance Department had to opt for such a tight regime on foreign tours of officers as over the years officers having good rapport with ministers were picked up for such tours. Moreover, a section of officers were smart enough to include their names in such tours making jumbo-sized teams. Such a practice turned the otherwise important foreign tours as ‘luxury tours’ for a section of officers at the cost of the State exchequer. Moreover, such team members accompanying a minister were supposed to see various activities like agriculture, horticulture, modern technologies etc in fields on foreign lands so that they could implement them here in Assam. However, report cards for such implementation by officers visiting foreign countries have always been nil.

In order to put an end to such a trend, the Finance Department on August 1, 2019 issued a notification seeking clear-cut specifications on four key points – (a) copy of previous tour report indicating quantified outcomes including tangible and/or non-tangible, (b) details of efforts made by the department during the interregnum to fully realize the intended outcome of the earlier visits, (c) a copy of follow-up action taken, and (d) justifying as to why the purpose of a visit cannot be served by any other means.

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