A parliamentary panel has recommended several changes for ensuring good governance through improved quality of civil servants and filling up of vacancies in critical agencies like IAS, Courts at different levels, CBI, CVC, CIC, Income Tax Appellate Tribunal etc.
Voicing concern over shortage of 1,494 IAS officers, the Committee called for addressing the problem of deficit of bureaucrats afflicting the Indian administration quickly.
Noting that 'Lateral Entry' of civil servants brings in qualified human resources, domain expertise and new ideas, the Committee suggested promotion of such lateral entrants to the next higher level based on their performance.
Referring to 1281 vacancies in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at various levels, the Committee noted that such a huge shortage of personnel may increase pendency, hamper the quality of investigation and ultimately reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the agency.
Referring to 397 vacancies of High Court Judges accounting for 37% of the sanctioned 1079 and 5146 vacant posts of judicial officers in the subordinate courts accounting for 21% of the total 24,018, the Committee called for avoiding delays in finalisation of names recommended by the collegium at all stages.
The Committee also expressed serious concern over the huge vacancies in the higher and lower Courts leading to delay in justice delivery. Referring to 'India Justice Report, 2019' the Committee noted that judicial delays cost 0.50 percent of the GDP of the country.
The Committee noted with concern the increase in
the pendency of cases by 8%, 29% and 21% in the Supreme Court, High Courts and subordinate Courts respectively since 2018.
Detailed recommendations in this regard were contained in the two Reports of the Department Related Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law & Justice on Demands for Grants for 2020-21 that were presented to Rajya Sabha on Friday. The Committee with 28 members from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha is headed by Bhupender Yadav of Rajya Sabha.
The Committee has recommended grouping of ministries into clusters like Rural Cluster, Social Cluster, Financial Cluster etc. and assigning civil servants cluster-wise based on their knowledge, competence, interests and inclination to enable them acquire skills, expertise and professional excellence in a particular domain.
Referring to the advantage of 360 degree performance appraisal of civil servants based on the assessment by an expert committee and feedback from various stakeholders and juniors, the Committee, however, cautioned that such feedback should not harm the honest and deserving civil servants who enforce discipline and performance.
Noting that globalisation has brought about radical transformation in governance and public administration requiring the civil servants to deliver under trying circumstances and with inadequate resources, the Committee has called for reorienting the training curriculum to make civil servants 'Emotionally Intelligent'.
The Committee also noted that 48,000 cases are still pending disposal in Central Administrative Tribunal due to the twin problems of human resource and infrastructure deficit and recommended institutionalising a pre-litigation conciliation mechanism to resolve the grievances of Government servants.