Govt to weed out confidential reports of retired employees

In order to ensure clean working space, the government today decided to weed out confidential reports of select categories of retired employees after normal retention period of about five years.
The Annual Confidential Report (ACR) or Annual Performance Assessment Report (APAR) of retired Private Secretaries (PSs), Principal Private Secretaries (PPSs) and Senior Principal Private Secretaries (Sr PPSs) are kept with different units under the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
On review, a large number of old dossiers of ACRs or APARs in respect of PSs, PPSs and Sr PPSs retained in this section are being considered for weeding out, the Central Secretariat division under the DoPT said in a circular to all unit heads.

According to rules, the ACRs or APARs of a government employee may be destroyed after five years of his retirement. However, the confidential performance report can be provided to a retired employee after completion of the retention period.
Accordingly, all cadre units are requested to intimate the details of ACRs or APARs of more than five years old in respect of which requests, if any, have been received for handing over from the retired officer concerned, it said.
"In case no information is received from a cadre unit by June 30, 2014, it will be presumed that the requisite information pertaining to that cadre unit is nil," the directive said.

The move assumes significance as Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth has recently written to secretaries of various central government departments, stressing the need for clean working space.

"There are several unnecessary files which are being destroyed after following due procedures. Other departments will also be told to destroy ACRs of retired employees after completion of retention period," a senior DoPT officer said.
Cleaning drives are also being carried out in central government office premises. "There are certain office premises where construction material is lying for years. In some office premises, unused or junked vehicles are also parked. The department concerned will ensure that no such vehicles or building material are lying," he said.

There will also be regular visit by senior officers to ensure that cleaning drive is not stopped mid-way, the officer said.