Issues With DOPT
Sanjeev Goyal
Write to PM
There are certain issue & observations concerning public sector employees indicating existing gap in rules leading to non-uniform practices across public sector entities. These have been clubbed with my own thought process about resolution. These are NOT suggestions but actual grievances about current practices and serious gaps in rules requiring resolution by active consideration of the competent authority. Proper addressing of each one of the issues is essential to avoid weird interpretations, increase productivity, improve ease of living and promote uniform practices.
As per attached file.
Table of Contents
(I) Long list of Public Holidays:
(iv) Attestation of documents:
(vi) Anomaly in the appointment to Accounts/Finance Department:
(xiii) Dependent Declaration by Public Servants:
(xiv) Casual leave is not a leave
(xv) Presence on Increment Day:
(xvii) Unlimited Medical reimbursement:
(I) Long list of Public Holidays: The present list of public holidays of Central Government runs for 19 days which contains 17 Gazeted Holidays (GH) plus 2 Restricted Holidays (RH). On an average we assume that 2 festivals would fall on either Saturday or Sunday. Considering that on an average there are 22 (365-104/12) working days, list is too long and practically is eating close to full one month. This is very high compared to other countries and practically out numbers many countries of the world. Some state Govts. even surpass this figure and are having a very long list of public holidays e.g. Haryana is having 36 holidays in 2017, Bengal 26 etc. This high number apparently does not serves any social cause. If we see the trend, demand for increase in holidays has not stalled. Still DOPT receive memorandum from employees union for additional holidays. With most of the Govt. organization following 5 days week, this entitlement is on very high side, often leading to slowness/disruption of work. Further, the present high list of holidays is unnecessarily creating disparity in public sector vis a vis private sector and is also one of factors unnecessarily creating extra charm for a Govt. job.
It is, therefore, felt that by putting a formula the problem needs to be fixed for good. All the PSU & Central Autonomous Bodies be given liberty to draw a list of 12 holidays (working days) annually with employees’ participation. Such a list would be more satisfying to the employees & would be in alignment with local environment.
In addition, these may be allowed to avail as many additional holidays as they want by compensating with working Saturday within the same calendar year.
Many a times, the present forced list does not satisfy employee aspirations and is not productive.
(II) Flexi Week Day: The traffic problem in cities has become grave. Travelling on working day, amidst heavy traffic, from Monday to Friday leads too much wastage of precious time & energy in jams. Courts have also suggested the Government to stagger office timings. However, while we talk about flexi hours, it is felt that we may have flexi working days as well. If some organizations can be given the liberty to opt their weekly off other than Saturday/Sunday. It could be 2 consecutive days holiday. It is felt that organisations be rather encouraged to shift weekly off from Saturday & Sunday TO Sunday & Monday OR Friday & Saturday or any other such combination. This will greatly help redistribute load on road usage, electricity consumption and even out weekend overcrowded places like movies, malls, tourists places etc.
(iii) Fluctuating Holiday: Everyone knows that judicial & quasi-judicial bodies in our country is over loaded with the huge pile up of pending cases. Every second, minute & hour of court time is extremely valuable as life and liberty of lakhs of people is at stake with each & every court verdict. Every ‘hearing date’ in court is a matter of life & death and is a huge mental & physical burden on all the persons connected with it due to anxiety and passing day of life of each party. Preparation of a hearing date entails a lot of work for all the parties associated.
Any holidays the date of which is not fixed well in advance causes enmass postponement of a hearing date across country leading to enormous loss to the country and its citizens. The festivals depending upon sighting of moon are only decided on last moment i.e. previous night. So for example if an holiday is predicted for 15th June and on the night of 14th Jun it was decided to postpone the holiday to 16th? This has happened in past where due to such postponement rescheduling of cases has happened and 2 days are wasted because no case was scheduled on 15th and cases for 16th can not be preponed.
It is submitted that judiciary which resolves highly complicated matters may also like to devolve some time to save this huge loss of court time for the sake of crores of people involved in the litigation. Under present system in case of postponement practically 2 days are wasted. Among others, there could be following possible alternatives:
When it is already known in advance that holiday may fluctuate all the hearings must be fixed on the likely holiday and no hearing should be fixed for next day, with a caveat that in case holiday is not postponed the hearing shall happen on next day. No hearing should be fixed for next day, to keep a provision for postponement of festival. For example: if Id is expected on 15th June, all the court should use this as a working day and use this date like any other regular day with a caveat that in case 15th June is declared as holiday all hearings shall happen on 16th Jun. This simple trick can resolve all issues connected with fluctuating holidays and there will never be loss of 2 days.
Similar thing should also apply on Government offices. Generally the holidays are shown in red colour, it is suggested that such fluctuating holidays may be shown with some different colour say blue to indicate that it is not a fixed date for holiday and in case this day is not declared as holiday on previous night it shall be a working day. For example if likely date of Id is 15th Jun – In calendar it should be shown in blue colour to suggest that in case holiday is not confirmed depending upon declaration on Doordarshan/AIR on previous night it will be a working day. The DOPT order for Holidays does not prescribe clearly the methodology to be followed in case an already declared holiday is postponed due to not sighting of moon and is to be treated as working day.
These doctrines may be made applicable to all quasi-judicial authorities run by Government employees like all taxation authorities, labour courts, human right courts, etc.
(iv) Attestation of documents: After formation of NDA Government the doing away with the signature of Gazetted officer for attesting anything was among the initial reforms India witnessed, and a great relief was provided to the public.
However, till today the trace of that culture is existing in the form of attestation of initial information and certification of character a candidate has to submit before joining any Government post. As per existing practice a candidate needs signature of:
1. Gazetted officer of Central/State Government,
2. MP/MLA belonging to constituency of residence of candidate/parents,
3. Sub-Divisional Magistrate,
4. Tehsildar or Naib/Deputy Tehsildar,
5. Principal/Head-Master of school where candidate last studied,
6. Block Development Officer,
7. Post Master,
8. Panchayat Inspector.
If we try to examine objectively - what special qualifications these officers carry which an officer of Public Sector Undertaking does not have is a matter to be examined? All are working for the same principal. As per constitutional provisions in all cases employer remains the State.
Why the MP/MLA belonging to self-constituency only are authorized – whereas Gazetted officer may belong to any part of India?
As per this list the Post-Master is considered a more responsible officer to certify the character of a person rather than the Head-Master of a school where candidate has not studied.
It is doubtful that all such artificial differentiations carry any actual meaning? It is high time to enforce the second leg of reforms.
On one side employees of PSU, Government societies, Central Universities are not considered Government employees, but they still have to follow all the rules framed for Govt. employees.
If at all it is required, the list may be broad based. It could be as under:
1. Any group A officer of Central/State Government, PSU, autonomous body, Municipality,
2. Any MP/MLA/Municipal Councilor,
3. Any judicial officer,
4. Principal/Head-Master of school and Professor or above rank officer in a University,
5. Tehsildar or Naib/Deputy Tehsildar,
6. Block Development Officer,
7. Post-Master,
8. Panchayat Inspector.
(v) Leave Autonomy: Commercial/industrial/trade institutions under the Central Government are allowed to prepare calendar of holidays as per their requirement. But no guidelines have been issued regarding process of making it. Due to absence of these instructions, even after this relaxation, no institute has released its list till date and this rule has failed to achieve its objective. No good reason has been given for not including autonomous bodies in this exemption, hence they should also be included in it.
DOPT must come out with a prescribed methodology to prepare the list with employees’ participation. The autonomous bodies should also be included in it.
(vi) Anomaly in the appointment to Accounts/Finance Department: While Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) have a Finance/Accounts cadre but the same is missing in Central Autonomous Bodies (CAB). In CAB there is only a general cadre taking care of Purchases, Estate, Administration, Marketing, Human resources, Accounts & Finance. All employees working in the general cadre are considered eligible for transfer to any other department. The point is, Accounts & Finance is a specialized field and everyone is not equipped to handle the intricacies of same. Specifically, those having done graduation in arts or science would not be professionally competent to handle the job to handle Accounts. While the persons working in Accounts/Finance can work elsewhere reverse is not true.
For all India Services, there is a care of Indian Audit & Accounts Service, similarly, in ministries, Subordinate Accounts Services (SAS) exam is conducted to determine the eligibility for the post of Accountant. But similar eligibility is not considered for Central Autonomous Bodies which are more than 750 in number.
Knowledge of Accounting & Financial principles is a distinct domain therefore course of B. Com has been designed by the Universities. In GFR-177 also the Finance, Accounts & Taxation has been referred as area of expert or strategy. The appointment of a BA(History) qualified candidate as Accounts/Finance Officer may not be in the interest of any organization. Moreover, when sufficient commerce graduates are available in the market what is the need to appoint a person with arts/science background into Accounts/Finance Department?
DOPT needs to look into this anomaly.
(vii) Name of PIO: For filing a second appeal under RTI it is necessary to quote the name & address of PIO and first appellate authority. In the present online RTI response format, many PIO & FAA does not disclose their name and complete address. So DOPT may issue necessary guidelines in this regard.
(viii) Employment Status: There's considerable confusion surrounding the employment status of individuals working in Public Sector Enterprises (PSE) and Central Autonomous Bodies (CAB). While government policy dictates that employees not paid from the consolidated fund of India aren't classified as government employees, the practical reality is different. Despite not being technically government employees, those serving in CAB/PSE are treated as such in various scenarios like police verifications, medical examinations, passport issuances, tax matters, NPS category, and access to several government facilities.
The DOPT formulates rules for government employees, but there isn't an equivalent body for CAB/PSE. Consequently, there's a prevailing practice of assuming DOPT's rules are applicable to CAB/PSE. This leads to interpretation issues when implementing various regulations, such as the availability of the old pension scheme or entitlements like Death cum Retirement Gratuity.
One potential solution to this confusion is to introduce a specific term for employees in CAB/PSE, such as grant employees, semi-government employees, local employees, or subordinate employees. By assigning a distinct terminology, it would clarify that rules and clarifications issued by DOPT don't automatically extend to CAB/PSE employees. This would help streamline procedures and alleviate ambiguity surrounding the applicability of regulations and entitlements for employees working in these sectors.
(ix) Gap in Rule Position: The DOPT frames employee service rules concerning perks, benefits and standard practices. The rules are framed only for employees in Central Government service. Though the AI/PSU are also owned by central Government but for technical reasons employees serving in these bodies are not considered in Central Services. Though as per constitutional provisions State remains the employer in all such cases. Despite such difference all are expected to comply with conduct rules applicable to Government employees. As such the rules framed by DOPT do not apply to AI/PSU. Whereas every AI/PSU has a fundamental assumption that rules framed for Central Service are applicable to them as well as such they do not frame separate set of rules. There are certain rules the adoption of which is possible as like leave entitlement, LTC, CEA, HRA, DA etc. But there also exist areas with a gap in operating procedures led by weird interpretation of rules. A few prominent areas where there is gap are enumerated below:
(1) Provision of lien on transfer of service from one AI/PSU to another,
(2) Payment of leave encashment & gratuity on transfer from one AI/PSU to another,
(3) Submission of medical certificate & other documents by new joinee on transfer from one AI/PSU to another,
(4) Purchase/retention policy of laptops,
(5) NPS contribution,
(6) Staff car entitlement,
(7) Newspaper/telephone reimbursement entitlement,
(8) Pay protection on transfer from one AI/PSU to another,
(9) Allotment of housing flats,
(10) Monthly Hospitality limits
(11) Applicability of Payment of Gratuity Act 1972,
(12) Post-retirement medical benefits, etc.
(13) Whether optional food expenses forming part of ticket is reimbuseable in case of air travel?
Since AI/PSU are also managed by public money, it would be appropriate that a model basic set of rules/procedures to be followed may be issued by DOPT which may be suitably adopted by the respective AI/PSU as per its business exigency, size, limitations or operational requirements.
There are many areas where central rules cannot be implemented in ditto and due to non-existence of model set of rules every effected person interprets rules as per own understanding and interest. For example, there are many small size AI where rules for granting lien cannot be practically implemented or protecting pay of a new joinee earlier working on a time scale but temporary post is not possible but always insisted or many employees still insist that NPS pension order is applicable to AI also.
Hence it is requested that in order to bring uniformity and avoid biased ness a model set of rules be framed by DOPT for AI/PSU.
(x) Sharing of APAR: Under current process, the ‘final APAR’ is not shared with the reporting officer. That means, the officer closest to the employee, who has written that Apar, is kept in the dark. That is, if the reviewing officer wants, he can write anything in favor of the employee in an exaggerated manner and the reporting officer will not even know about it? In other words, the employee and the reviewing officer can act together to bypass reporting officer. This is against the principles of transparency.
(xi) Attendance Control: Under existing procedure the responsibility to maintain discipline in the department has been caste upon immediate supervising officer. This has been the tradition since decades and is based on the hypothesis that the immediate supervisor sitting in the room is expected to enforce attendance discipline. Over the period offices have been physical diversified and spread, there are very small offices as well as big offices. In many cases the physical sitting of staff under one officer is not within direct visibility range. Or in many cases the reporting officer of another officer is not at the same location. Most of the offices, therefore, are now relying on mechanical bio-metric based attendance machines, the data of which can be easily pooled anywhere by the central office or any other controlling office.
Despite advent of new technology and availability of this data at click of mouse, no change in the procedure about verification of attendance has been made. The central administration can easily fetch the attendance irregularities of any staff member located anywhere. All the immediate reporting officer may not have administrative rights in the software to generate desired reports. In case immediate supervisor is not enforcing attendance discipline in the section or himself is a late comer, then despite having full access of data the administration wing does not take any action. In the absence of any report from immediate supervisor the administration would be regular in sending confirmation to release salaries to all at the month end. In this way it becomes no one’s responsibility because compensation is not affected.
It is, therefore, requested that the procedure for attendance monitoring mechanism through centrally generated MIS needs to be framed by DOPT to plug the gap.
The DOPT may consider providing periodicity & formats of reports to be generated by Administration wing from central attendance data server to review the discipline/punctuality in the office.
(xii) Cash allowance: The OM vide reference number F. No. 4/6/2017-Estt.(Pay-II) dated 18/01/2019 issued by DOPT governs the condition for entitlement of cash allowance. However, there appears to be certain gaps, as under, in the OM which DOPT may consider for appropriate plugging.
(1) There is no starting threshold below which cash allowance is not payable. With increased emphasise on electronic payments there are negligible cash disbursement. Even there could be full months without any transaction for cash disbursement.
(2) There are offices where cashier only receives some small amount of cash and the same is immediately deposited in bank and but there is no disbursement to anyone.
The above situations have not been covered in the OM as a result, the payment of cash allowance continues even when there is ZERO cash disbursement. DOPT may consider this and issue appropriate clarification for payment of cash allowance when there is zero disbursement.
(xiii) Dependent Declaration by Public Servants: After joining duty, the declaration of spouse and dependents is given to avail several benefits by a public servant. But unlike annual oath of anti-corruption, property return, periodic renewal of photograph etc. no re-confirmation about family is given ever.
The declaration is given by the public servants based on his knowledge and there is no supporting statement given by the beneficiary i.e. dependent member. Now with many state Governments giving old age pension it is quite possible that parent may enroll themselves with the state Government for drawing monthly pension and cross the dependency criteria or the child may start earning through some part time engagements which may not be in the active knowledge of public servants. In the absence of any annual confirmation the public servant may not re-check the earning status with dependents and erroneously continue to draw the benefits. The seems to be gap in existing regulations, the DOPT may please take appropriate steps to address this.
(xiv) Casual leave is not a leave: A person on casual leave is not considered a person on leave? What is the actual meaning of this provision? Such regulations only create administrative difficulties. Can a person on causal leave be treated on duty? In India more than public sector multiple times employment is with private sector and there is no such concept of casual leave. The leave regulations must be contemporary and meet the present day practical realities. Such out dated definitions need to be removed to avoid misuse by undisciplined employees.
(xv) Presence on Increment Day: As per present regulation presence is necessary on the day of increment. But a person on casual leave is considered a person on duty and the provision is not applicable? There is no rational for such processes. If the presence is necessary, the causal leave should not be considered as exception. What if the day of increment is a holiday? The provision may be made more specific by stating that presence is necessary of the day of increment, in case that happens to be a holiday on first working thereafter.
(xvi) Reemployed Person: The understanding given as per present rules is, a person is considered reemployed only after the age of superannuation. What if a person has changed job, before superannuation, from one centrally funded CAB to another CAB or from CG to CAB and also drawing pension from earlier organization? More so, what will happen if the change in job is in continuity without break after rendering technical resignation? The provision must be very specific, shed the ambiguity and cover all conditions. It could simply state that a person drawing pension from any Government sources shall be considered as reemployed.
(xvii) Unlimited Medical reimbursement: Currently, the Children Education Allowance (CEA) and Leave Travel Concession (LTC) benefits are limited to two dependent children. However, this restriction does not apply to medical reimbursement, allowing employees with more than two children to still access medical facilities without limit. Given that the restriction on LTC and CEA was established over two decades ago, there is no reason to withhold the application of this restriction to medical reimbursement.
In the context of ongoing population challenges, incentive that encourage large families requires immediate reconsidered. The Central Government Health Services are under significant strain and citing the existing workload have not been enrolling new employees from statutory bodies for several years. Allowing medical reimbursement for unlimited wards is grossly unfair to those who have adhered to family planning measures and to those who have been denied such benefits due to over load.
Urgent action required to resolve this disparity.
(xviii) Incomplete Orders: The newspaper/telephone reimbursement entitlement OM only specifies posts wise limits. However, same order is followed by more than 750 CAB and C&AG where these posts do not exist. So, how should they interpret this. Whether employees having lower substantive posts but with financial upgradation would be entitled for higher limits. How to set equivalence level? As per clarification issued by DOE the entitlement is for substantive post holder and not for employees getting financial upgradation but no such supporting directions have been issued by DOPT leading to confusion. For instance, in CAB the Section Officer posts stars at Level-7 but in ministries it is 8. In order to avoid such ambiguity the OM must be issued considering its adoptability at C&AG & CAB.
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