DailyPost 2719
SUPERANNUATION AND BEYOND!
The HR policies of any organization speaks of its health and has a bearing on the culture of the organization. Finally, the organizational culture prevails and this seems to a well accepted fact about the Indian bureaucracy, within and outside. There are HR machines in this world which can transform the best into dummies and we have one Israel, which can transform youngsters into globally sought-after talent. The day you join the government service, you are aware of the exact date when you job engagement with the government would end. You are supposed to be a cog in wheel.
The legal and operational presumption is the all cogs are the same and each of these are trained to fit into the other within the given parameters; on the basis of years of service and the job level they have achieved. Another factor is their recorded performance. The objective and empirical entry exam of UPSC pushes you into a world of subjectivity from day one, for all your professional life. May be from pretty early in your professional life, either no one cares about the expertise you garner or they just not aware of it. It is incidental at the best. It can also happen that your posting is done by people, who don’t have your track record in front of them. Even if it is there, what difference does it make.
Transfers were provided for to bring down the element of subjectivity and get rooted to a considerable degree could be brought down. When your long service inches towards a logical conclusion, the effort is to keep hanging on. There were rules provided for some extensions, presumably for exceptional circumstances, in something like the rarest of the rare cases. Neither the governments, nor the bureaucrats have looked at those provisions with this prism. As perceived all around, everything in the government is worth taking a shot at. The spirit of governance has long been diluted beyond recognition. That has slowly changed both its tenor and the texture. Wherever tenure has been provided beyond the age of superannuation, what legality it enjoys from a purely service rules touchstone, has not been really tested.
How pliable can you be, if you looking for an extension of service? And how pliable would you be while you are serving your extension? All those you lost out on the top posts, which should have been theirs at the fag-end of the career, would have their own tale of woe. The post retirement engagements had already put a gaping hole in the way you could maintain steadfastness in your decision making and delivery, when that was required the most. Earlier the situations were few and far between but now there are lots to choose from. Even before this scenario emerged, taking political diktats was normal whether it was in conformity with law or by stretching the law or even by some weird interpretation, it was fine. What have been the great use of the constitutional immunity these jobs provide? Added to this, you can quit and jump into electoral politics. The post retirement jobs for judges and they some inking of political ambitions, for sure is a disturbing trend. Cooling off is not there where it is required the most. A five-year cooling off period to start with can have a sobering impact on their official behavior and delivery.
EVERYTHING HAS AN EXPIRY DATE; WE NEED TO STICK TO IT.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.