Ladakh to go for ad-hoc appointment of officers to meet acute staff crunch
Grappling with the serious problem of manpower, the UT administration of Ladakh has come out with detailed guidelines for making “temporary officiating appointments and promotions” against vacant posts of Gazetted Services in the region.
The UT administration claimed that it has received multiple proposals for temporary appointment of officers and officials on adhoc basis against vacant Gazetted posts as “officiating arrangement”. For the engagement of such officers and officials, the administration has made it mandatory for having the latest Vigilance Clearance of employees and should be in place for consideration of such proposals.
It has, however, asked all the departments that they should simultaneously ensure expeditious framing of draft Recruitment Rules of the Gazetted Services.
According to the UT administration, the general principles outlined by DoPT, Government of India, provide that all posts are required to be filled in accordance with the prescribed procedure in terms of the Recruitment Rules (RRs) on a regular basis.
“However where a post cannot be kept vacant for functional reasons/exigencies of work, or where Deputation as an alternative method of recruitment has not been prescribed in the RRs, the post may be filled up on ad-hoc basis as a last resort,” it said.
While issuing directions to all administrative secretaries and heads of the departments and offices, the UT administration asked them to process such cases after proper screening of the records as per the checklist provided below and place proposal of only the eligible candidates before the competent authority for approval in order to regulate officiating appointments on ad-hoc basis.
It has been decided that appointment on officiating arrangement should be considered only in the cases where regular promotion is not immediately possible. “Where RRs have been notified and DPC has been constituted, adhoc appointments should not be considered. Such appointments should be considered only against vacant promotion quota posts which should be worked out based on the incumbency position and not on vacancy position,” it said.
It further said, “Authorities would maintain a common register/roster register for permanent appointments and temporary appointments likely to become permanent or to continue indefinitely. Reservation in promotion, wherever applicable, should be followed while considering adhoc appointments too. Such appointments should be considered only on seniority cum merit basis”.
The UT administration said the placement (of officers and officials) would be made only for the purpose of meeting out the shortages of Officers strictly as an adhoc measure and would not confer any superior claim or right upon them at the time of confirmation /regularization through DPC which would be ordered strictly as per rules.
“It should be clearly mentioned in the provisional seniority list as well as in the placement order that any official allotted to Jammu and Kashmir from Ladakh or vice versa, at a later date, after final apportionment, would be placed above the next junior employee in the last final seniority list,” it said, adding “The order of appointment on officiating arrangement must clearly mention that the placements will not create any sort of preferential right of any official for holding higher post. The departments may review the continuance of the Adhoc promotions after the completion of one year”.
