The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh reviewed the functioning of State General Administration Departments (GAD) in a meeting with Principal Secretaries of GAD of all States and Union Territories as well as senior officers of Department of Personnel Training (DoPT), UPSC, CBI and Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, here today. Dr. Jitendra Singh said the truth is that the Department of GAD/Personnel/DOPT is in fact virtually an R&D (Research & Development) wing of the government and serves as jugular vein of the administrative machinery.
The responsibility of GAD/DOPT is to ensure optimum utilisation of the potential and talent of each officer at right time and right place, and at the same time, provide a work-friendly environment in which an officer can give his best without any intimidation or subjugation, he added. Taking a review of a wide range of issues related to the Ministry, Dr Jitendra Singh said, cadre review of IAS is complete in respect of most of the States barring Jammu & Kashmir, but the state government has assured that they will submit all the requisite documents within next two weeks so that the cadre review for J&K could also be completed at the earliest.
Referring to Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi’s commitment to give “maximum governance with minimum government”,Dr Jitendra Singh referred to some of the revolutionary decisions taken by the DOPT during the one year of the present government which included introduction of self-attested single affidavit/certificate provision, introduction of pension portal based on biometric Aadhaar card to eliminate the need of producing life certificate by elder citizens, raising of cut-off age for state-level officers’ induction into IAS from 54 to 56 years, revision in the pattern and syllabus of IAS exam and successful allocation of IAS and other services officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. A significant proposal taken up at today’s meeting was to reduce the duration of induction training from 8 weeks to 6 weeks for state level Civil Service officers who get inducted into IAS. The meeting also discussed the progress made by State Government and Union Territory administrations to constitute Civil Services Boards in respective states and progress made in setting up of special CBI courts in different States including Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
The issue of faculty for the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie also came up and Dr. Jitendra Singh called upon such officers who had an aptitude for teaching and academics to voluntarily offer themselves for a stint as faculty teacher at the LBSNAA, which will not only be of use to the IAS trainees in the Academy but will also give them a satisfaction of having served the alma matter which trained them for a coveted career. The Secretary, DOPT, Shri Sanjay Kothari, Additional Secretary, DoPT, Shri T. Jackob and Establishment Officer, Shri Rajiv Kumar also addressed the participants.