The socioeconomic development of a region or a province is linked to reforms in the Civil Administration and the right motivation for the workforce, leading to an improved work environment. This has been achieved in Jammu & Kashmir after abrogating the controversial Article 370 and putting the administration as a Union Territory.
Sources say it goes to the credit of the Modi Government and the UT administration under Lt Governor Manoj Sinha that the “Element of Discretion” in the recruitment process has been reduced. One strategy to ensure this has been the introduction of recruitment of Class IV posts made through the Jammu & Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB). Moreover, the alleged ‘discretion’ has been done away with introducing the interview process for posts up to Level V.
An official said the administration had taken a long-term measure by removing the ‘stagnation’ of the officials. Hence, more Jammu & Kashmir administrative service (JKAS) officers will benefit from promotions shortly. It has also been claimed that at least 443 serving employees and over 41 retirees have been immediate beneficiaries.
Sources also said that the seniority list of 239 officers appointed to the Time Scale of Jammu & Kashmir and the formal administrative service had been notified too.
In building the human resources’ fairness and equity, the administration also took steps so that more than two-decade-old seniority disputes in the gazetted cadre of the Jammu & Kashmir Police Service (JKPS) have been resolved.
“You can appreciate what has been achieved when we tell you that as many as 12 officers have been inducted in the IPS after ten years,” a source said. Other steps taken include making the ‘seniority list’ updated. “In the process, we ensured that more than 100 officers have been promoted to higher ranks, a matter that had been embroiled in litigation since 2015,” the source said.
The Selection grade has been granted to 550 officers, and as many as 700 officers’ officiating’ for many years have been regularised, sources said.
Dwelling on other aspects, sources said the Jammu & Kashmir Bank has brought in transformative changes by undertaking multi-pronged strategies. The results of the new initiatives and enhancement of transparency and accountability also brought in dividends and, more importantly, some significant milestones. Among these, the Jammu & Kashmir Bank has bagged the ‘Top Banker’ award for Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme.
The bank has also achieved the ‘second highest percentage of digital payment’ transactions from the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. In the process, what the bank has earned is also immense.
“All procurement of goods and services is done through a well-defined and transparent tendering process leading to significant cost saving and improved price discovery,” the source said.
Another positive work has been to ‘de-prioritise’ corporate lending. “And this also resulted in improving the share of retail advances of the Bank to 65 per cent of overall loan booked thereby controlling the Non-Performing Assets (NPA) levels,” the source said.
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