Guidelines for engagement of consultants in Ministries

Consultants of several foreign funded organisations engaged with the various health programmes who have completed a tenure of three years should be "disengaged" by June this year, the government today said.
Union Health Minister J P Nadda in a written reply in Lok Sabha said the department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry in its office memorandum has prescribed guidelines for consultants by the Ministries, government departments from bilateral partners and multilateral organisations.
He said that the proposal of continuation of these consultants under various programmes of the Health Ministry was placed before the Screening Committee of Secretaries (SCoS).

"The SCoS in its meeting held on March 18 this year decided that such consultants who have completed tenure of three years must be disengaged within a period of three months - that is by June 2016.
"In respect of such consultants engaged for less than three years, SCoS has decided to engage them as per the need and subject to all the terms and conditions stipulated in the department of Economic Affairs office memorandum," Nadda said.
He said that the implementation of the guidelines in the matter issued by the department of economic affairs and execution of the decision of ScoS is a "continuous" process.

As per reports, loss of these professionals, most of whom are Indian nationals, has raised concern that signature programmes to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis may suffer just as they face funding shortages due to slow bureaucracy.