Niti Aayog seeks early promotion of bureaucrats

New Delhi: To revitalise bureaucracy and governance mechanism, the Niti Aayog has suggested that the government should institutionalise goal-setting and tracking for each department.

Every ministry and government agency should set outcome-based goals with a clear timeline. In addition to this, a human resource system should be implemented for government employees.

The action plan has also batted for longer tenure for secretaries of government departments. Currently, it said that by the time an officer is promoted from additional secretary to secretary, usually he or she has two years or less left before retirement.

This feature creates two important inefficiencies. One, with a time horizon shorter than two years, the officer is hesitant to take any major initiatives.

Two, and more importantly, to the extent that any misstep may become the cause for charges of favouritism or corruption post-retirement, the officer hesitates to take decisions on any major project. This causes inordinate amount of delay in decision-making. One possible solution to this problem is early promotion to the secretary position, Niti Aayog has suggested.

These are some of the recommendations made by the government think tank in its recently released three-year action plan, which will run co-terminus with the 15-year vision document. It said HR management needs to be a strategic function in the government.