Path-breaking initiatives like discontinuation of affidavits for host of government services and ending job interviews for various posts from January 1 among other initiatives kept the Ministry of Personnel in news during 2015.
"The most revolutionary and path-breaking decision is abolition of attestation of certificates by gazetted officers instead promoting self-attestation," Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh told PTI.
He said the government took this decision as it was willing to trust citizens, more importantly it's youth who will not give wrong information while submitting self-attested documents.
This decision has come as a big relief to common people, especially those living in rural areas, who had to take lot of pain in getting documents attested.
The Ministry also recently discontinued the practice of submission of affidavit by the family members of deceased government employees for the appointment on compassionate grounds.
Now people are required to submit self-declaration at the time of applying for compassionate appointment. All states and union territories have also been asked by the Centre to do away with practice of getting gazetted officer-signed affidavit and seek self-attestation.
Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency, said soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to end interviews from government jobs, his Ministry has acted on it.
"We have decided that from January 1, next year, the process of interview for Group C and D recruitments will be abolished," he said, adding that these are some steps which nobody thought of in past over 60 years after country's independence.
Singh said the Ministry which is held by the Prime Minister started several measures to increase transparency and simplify governance.
"We have started the process of simplification of various application forms being used in the government. We are converting multi-page application forms into one-page," the Minister said.
Talking about other initiatives, he said a pension portal has been started. "Those who are getting superannuated can check the status of their pension online. They can also check pension payment orders online," Singh said.
He said out of 6.5 lakh public grievances received by his ministry during the year, 4.8 lakh were disposed of.
"The ministry will continue to work towards simplifying governance," Singh said.
In another novel initiative, the ministry started yoga camps for the central government employees and their dependents.
Besides, it exempted the parents of differently-abled children from the mandatory transfers so that they can take proper care of them.
The scheme of interaction of officers with school students has been launched in which the officers of government of India visit schools and share their experiences with the students.
As a pilot project, senior officers of Department of Personnel and Training have visited kendriya vidyalayas in Delhi and interacted with the students.
For the first time in the history of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the officers of 2013 batch were posted as assistant secretary in the Central Secretariat for a period of three months.
In order to crack a whip on non-performing bureaucrats, it has started assessing the performance of employees. The government has asked all its departments to identify such public servants and move proposals for their premature retirement.
The Personnel Ministry has formed rules to check unauthorised stay on foreign postings by IAS, IPS and IFS officers.
(PTI)
