No more affidavits, interviews for govt jobs

This decision has come as a relief to people in rural areas, who had to face problems in getting their documents attested

Path-breaking initiatives like discontinuation of affidavits for a host of government services and ending job interviews for various posts from January 1, among other initiatives, kept the ministry of personnel in news during 2015.

"The most revolutionary and path-breaking decision is abolition of attestation of certificates by gazetted officers and, instead, promoting self-attestation," Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said.

He added the government took this decision since it was willing to trust citizens - more importantly, its youth - who will not give wrong information while submitting self-attested documents.

This decision has come as a relief to people, especially those living in rural areas, who had to face problems in getting their documents attested.

The ministry also recently discontinued the practice of submitting affidavits by the family members of deceased government employees for the appointment on compassionate grounds.

People are now required to submit self-declaration at the time of applying for an appointment on compassionate grounds.

All states and Union territories have also been asked by the Centre to do away with the practice of getting gazetted officer-signed affidavit and seek self-attestation.

Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency, said soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to end interviews from government jobs, his ministry has acted on it.

Singh said the ministry, which is held by the prime minister, started several measures to increase transparency and simplify governance.

"We have started the process of simplification of various application forms being used in the government. We are converting multi-page application forms into one-page," he said.

Talking about other initiatives, he said a pension portal has been started.

"Those who are getting superannuated can check the status of their pension online. They can also check pension payment orders online," Singh said.

He said out of 650,000 public grievances received by his ministry during the year, 480,000 were disposed of.

"The ministry will continue to work towards simplifying governance," Singh said.

In another novel initiative, the ministry started yoga camps for the central government employees and their dependents.

Besides, it exempted the parents of differently-abled children from the mandatory transfers so that they can take proper care of them.

The scheme of interaction of officers with school students has been launched. Under the scheme,, government officers visit schools and share their experiences with students.

As a pilot project, senior officers of the department of personnel and training have visited Kendriya Vidyalayas in Delhi and interacted with students.

For the first time in the history of the Indian Administrative Services, or IAS, the officers of the 2013 batch were posted as assistant secretary in the Central Secretariat for a period of three months.

In order to crack a whip on non-performing bureaucrats, it has started assessing the performance of employees.

The government has asked all its departments to identify such public servants and move proposals for their premature retirement.

The personnel ministry has formed rules to check unauthorised stay on foreign postings by officers of the Indian Police Services and the Indian Foreign Services.