Blatant violation of policy

11/02/2018

Large scale pre-mature transfers in blatant violation of policy duly approved by the State Cabinet have virtually become a norm in the PDP-BJP Coalition Government with General Administration Department issuing 235 such orders during the past three years. Shockingly, 45 IAS and 20 IPS officers besides large number of members of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) were transferred within one year or less than that in 2016 and 2017. Though such a large scale pre-mature transfers were made under the garb of administrative exigency yet the fact remains that political interventions played key role in throwing to winds the provisions of the Transfer Policy approved by the highest decision making body of the State. The State Cabinet vide Decision No.156/12/2010 dated July 27, 2010 put seal of approval on the Transfer Policy and the same was accordingly put in public domain vide Government Order No.861-GAD of 2010 dated July 28, 2010 in supersession of all previous orders and circular instructions on the subject. As per the policy, the minimum tenure of a Government employee on a particular post shall be two years and a maximum of three years. However, the Transfer Policy is being considered as trash by the PDP-BJP Coalition Government. This is evident from the official figures provided to the Legislative Assembly by the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
Shockingly, 45 IAS, 20 IPS, 134 J&K Administrative Service (KAS) and 82 J&K Police Service (KPS) officers were transferred within one year or less than that during 2016 and 2017. The intensity of abuse of Transfer Policy can be gauged from the fact that a number of IAS officers of the rank of Secretary to the Government were transferred four-five times within a span of two years as such their services could not be effectively utilized in any of the departments they were posted in. In respect of one IAS officer the violation of Transfer Policy crossed all the limits as within a period of two and half years he was shifted six times. In this way, the PDP-BJP Coalition Government virtually made mockery of posts of Administrative Secretaries of the departments. Several KAS officers were shuffled so frequently as if transfers were the only priority sector for the Government and good governance can be provided only by way of making frequent transfers that too on the political interventions. Interestingly, the Ministers instead of objecting to frequent transfers of their Administrative Secretaries themselves remained instrumental in flouting of Transfer Policy despite being aware of the fact that four-five months are required to an officer to understand the schemes and programmes of a particular department. However, no such ground was made while affecting large scale pre-mature transfers by the General Administration and Home Departments. This has clearly established that pre-mature transfers have virtually been made a norm by the PDP-BJP Government. As per the official data, only 22 administrative inspections of various departments were conducted during the last three years. Of these, 2 inspections were conducted in 2015, three in 2016 and 15 in 2017.

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