The earlier eligiblity rules for promotion were eight years of serivce in the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police, now they will rise depending on how well they perform in their current posting. This is how people rise in private service, so the government is not doing anything radical, just bringing about a change that should have come a long time ago. A change that the government had been hinting about.
In December 2019, warning government servants of action for their ‘lethargic behaviour’, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had hinted that performance would be considered for promotion in government departments and that the State was working on a proposal to ensure that and rise in the cadres would be based on how well they function in their posting and not only on seniority. Earlier, the Chief Minister had said that people look for government jobs because they don’t want to work or don’t want to be in time to office, well aware that whether they work or not they are entitled to all the benefits. He had warned at that time that such an attitude will not be tolerated.
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While these remained mere statements, it is only now, with the proposal for promotion of the Deputy Superintendents of Police to Superintendents of Police that there has been some development in the area. Government servants who believe that promotion is a right after a certain period of service may not take well to this change – there could even be opposition to such a move – but if there is to be efficiency and accountability in government service, this is the best possible measure. The least that a government can do to ensure that those employed by it deliver is to tie up promotions to performance. It may just make the government employee work a little harder.
However, this should not lead to partiality for promoting the members of staff who are in the favoured books of the department’s senior officials or of the politicians. To avoid this, the State must develop a mechanism that will gauge the output and the performance of its employees and allow only those to climb the next rung of the ladder based on their performance. Promotion has to be purely on the delivery of services and not on how many years the person has spent in service. In the private sector this works very well, so why can’t it be implemented in government service? It can, only if the government has the will to do so. Governance and adminstration in the State has to improve. And for that to happen the government workforce has to be responsive to the situation at all times.
Just weeks ago the Margao Municipal Council had been faced with mass absenteeism as the biometric system of attendance had been discontinued when an employee had got infected with COVID-19. Employees took advantage of the situation and abstained from work leaving the offices of the town council practically empty leading to the Chief Officer ‘trying his level best to discipline the staff’. Such situations will arise only when the employee is secure in the knowledge that he cannot be pulled up. But if there is a chance the promotional avenues will get affected, there may be a change in attitude. The government is now on a recruitment drive and 10,000 new employees are expected to join the ranks of the government servants. This is the best time to bring about the change.
