The Centre is mulling a policy wherein all Under Secretaries belonging to the Central Secretariat Services will not be at the mercy of their Secretaries to undertake the domestic and international Mandatory Training Programme (MTP). The move comes following the inordinate delay by concerned Secretaries in relieving 40 CSS officers, posted as Under Secretaries, for the MTP. Till the last deadline of March 23, 2015 only 18 reported for the MTP while 22, including two posted in DoPT itself which had issued the MTP orders on March 13, were not relieved. MTP is a must for promotion to the next Selection Grade of Deputy Secretaries and those not undergoing the training are “liable to debarment and denial of promotion as per DOPT rules”.
The routine training programme includes a tie up from foreign institutions with an Overseas component of Rs3 lakh per participant for the month long training period in India and abroad. In an unprecedented move, to avoid any embarrassment at the hands of foreign coordination the DoPT nominated fresh list of 20 under secretaries for the said training.
The new list came after the Secretaries were not relieved and the DoPT sought valid reasons in case the nominated officer is not relieved on time. The DoPT however kept non-complaint to its own rules and guidelines and the nomination of 20 fresh names in “emergency” is said to be extraneous. “This was done to avoid embarrassment as the training is done in coordination with the institutions abroad,” said a DoPT source.