by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Modi wants clerks back
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Harish Gupta
New Delhi, March 15
The Filegate scam is set to take a major toll and the contractual Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS) may be a thing of the past. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is understood to have ordered a reversal of government's decades old recruitment policy which dumped the Lower Division Clerk (LDC). The LDCs, once considered the backbone of Central government offices and abandoned decades ago, may be back in the reckoning.
The need to relook at the policy arose after recent
espionage cases exposed the role of MTS personnel outsourced
or people on contract working at various level in the government.
The MTS were found involved in furnishing vital government documents and the PM held a series of reviews of various aspects linked to decay in the system
The department of personnel, directly under the Prime Minister, has signalled the recruitment of LDCs sooner than expected and the hiring of the Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS) will be discontinued.
The need to relook at the policy arose after recent espionage cases exposed the role of MTS personnel outsourced or people on contract working at various level in the government. The MTS were found involved in furnishing vital government documents and the PM held a series of reviews of various aspects linked to decay in the system.
A department of personnel note circulated to various ministries and departments last month argued for recruiting the LDC "to strengthen the level of commitment which cannot be expected from the outsourced staff."
Over the years, the strength of LDCs in the ministries and departments has come down substantially from the original level of about 5,300 after it was stopped in 2003. It is learnt that the a group of ministers did not agree phasing out of LDCs and directed that the matter be reconsidered. Thereafter, the matter remained pending for a long time during the UPA regime due to indecision.
However, the Modi government has decided to take it forward in view of recent weaknesses in the systems. It was also found that the Central Secretariat is heavily top loaded with only 6,700 assistants feeding 3,200 section officers, 1,600 under secretaries, and 1,200 deputy secretaries and directors.
The induction of LDCs will help the government cut flab at the higher levels too and would give continuity and institutional memory as compared to the outsourced staff. However, it is still argued by many in the government that in the era of e-governance and paperless office, maintaining a large cadre of LDCs to carry out routing office jobs manually may be regressive.
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