Government favours discontinuing interview for appointment to various posts
Union
Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern
Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic
Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh has said that the Union Government
is in favour of doing away with the practice of holding interviews for
appointment to junior level posts.
Presiding over a meeting of
Principal Secretaries of General Administration Department
(GAD)/Personnel from different States and Union Territories here today,
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Department of Personnel & Training
(DoPT) has initiated a serious exercise for identifying the posts for
which interview for selection can be discontinued and a communique in
this regard has been sent to various State Governments, State Public
Service Commissions and Staff Selection Commission. He said that this
follows the suggestion put forward by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra
Modi during his Independence Day address to the nation from the ramparts
of the Red Fort.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the
government will soon identify all those posts, particularly at junior
level like Group III & IV, where an interview is avoidable and will
stop this practice. He said, for a post for which an interview is not
necessary to determine the capability of a candidate, the provision of
interview sometimes leads to scope for manipulation, manoeuvrability and
corruption. Therefore, barring such posts where an interview would help
in testing special capabilities for a particular assignment, abolition
of the provision of interview will not only be in larger public interest
but would also offer a level playing field for even those of the
candidates who lack resources and come from lower socio-economic strata,
he added.
Referring to some of the revolutionary
decisions taken by the DoPT during the last 15 months of the present
government, Dr Jitendra Singh made a special mention of the introduction
of self-attestation of certificates. This, he said, not only eliminated
inconvenience caused to the youth for going around to seek attestation
of certificates from gazetted officers, etc., but also sent out a
reassuring message that the present government has the capacity to trust
the youth of this country. Similarly, he also referred to the Pension
Department’s plans to finalise Pension Portal which would help in ending
the practice of producing life certificates by a pensioner.
Dr Jitendra Singh also informed that a
pilot exercise undertaken for three States of Jammu & Kashmir,
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had proved successful wherein, for the first
time, an Induction training programme was introduced for the newly
inducted State-level functionaries and the same practice is now being
extended to other States as well. He also referred to a landmark
decision by the DoPT to revise and revisit the pattern and syllabus of
IAS and other Civil Services Exam to offer a level playing opportunity
for aspirants from different streams.
The meeting was attended among others by
Secretary, DoPT, Shri Sanjay Kothari, Secretary, Department of
Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, Shri Devendra Chaudhry
and Establishment Officer, DoPT, Shri Rajiv Kumar.
Source: PIB News
