Following are the initiatives of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions during the year 2020:

1. Cabinet approved creation of National Recruitment Agency (NRA), paving the way for a transformational reform in the recruitment process for central government jobs

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval in August, 2020 for creation of National Recruitment Agency (NRA), paving the way for a transformational reform in the recruitment process for central government jobs.

Recruitment Reform - a major boon for the youth

At present, candidates seeking government jobs have to appear for separate examinations conducted by multiple recruiting agencies for various posts, for which similar eligibility conditions have been prescribed. Candidates have to pay fee to multiple recruiting agencies and also have to travel long distances for appearing in various exams. These multiple recruitment examinations are a burden on the candidates, as also on the respective recruitment agencies, involving avoidable/repetitive expenditure, law and order/security related issues and venue related problems. On an average, 2.5 crore to 3 crore candidates appear in each of these examinations. A common eligibility Test would enable these candidates to appear once and apply to any or all of these recruitment agencies for the higher level of examination. This would indeed be a boon to all the candidates.

National Recruitment Agency (NRA)

A multi-agency body called the National Recruitment Agency (NRA) will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen/shortlist candidates for the Group B and C (non-technical) posts. NRA will have representatives of Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Finance/Department of Financial Services, the SSC, RRB & IBPS. It is envisioned that the NRA would be a specialist body bringing the state-of-the-art technology and best practices to the field of Central Government recruitment.

Access to Examination Centres

Examination Centres in every District of the country would greatly enhance access to the candidates located in far-flung areas. Special focus on creating examination infrastructure in the 117 Aspirational Districts would go a long way in affording access to candidates at a place nearer to where they reside. The benefits in terms of cost, effort, safety and much more would be immense. The proposal will not only ease access to rural candidates, it will also motivate the rural candidates residing in the far-flung areas to take the examination and thereby, enhance their representation in Central Government jobs. Taking job opportunities closer to the people is a radical step that would greatly enhance ease of living for the youth.

Major Relief to poor Candidates

Presently, the candidates have to appear in multiple examinations conducted by multiple agencies. Apart from the examination fees, candidates have to incur additional expenses for travel, boarding, lodging and other such. A single examination would reduce the financial burden on candidates to a large extent.

Women candidates to benefit greatly

Women candidates especially from rural areas face constraints in appearing in multiple examinations as they have to arrange for transportation and places to stay in places that are far away. They sometimes have to find suitable persons to accompany them to these Centres that are located far away. The location of test centres in every District would greatly benefit candidates from rural areas in general and women candidates in particular.

Bonanza for Candidates from Rural Areas

Given the financial and other constraints, the candidates from rural background have to make a choice as to which examination they want to appear in. Under the NRA, the candidates by appearing in one examination will get an opportunity to compete for many posts. NRA will conduct the first-level /Tier I Examination which is the stepping stone for many other selections.

CET Score to be valid for three years, no bar on attempts

The CET score of the candidate shall be valid for a period of three years from the date of declaration of the result. The best of the valid scores shall be deemed to be the current score of the candidate. There shall be no restriction on the number of attempts to be taken by a candidate to appear in the CET subject to the upper age limit. Relaxation in the upper age limit shall be given to candidates of SC/ST/OBC and other categories as per the extant policy of the Government. This would go a long way in mitigating the hardship of candidates who spend a considerable amount of time, money and effort preparing and giving these examinations every year.

Standardised Testing

NRA shall conduct a separate CET each for the three levels of graduate, higher secondary (12th pass) and the matriculate (10^th pass) candidates for those non-technical posts to which recruitment is presently carried out by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) and by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS). Based on the screening done at the CET score level, final selection for recruitment shall be made through separate specialised Tiers (II, III etc) of examination which shall be conducted by the respective recruitment agencies. The curriculum for this test would be common as would be the standard. This would greatly ease the burden of candidates who are at present required to prepare for each of the examinations separately as per different curriculum.

Scheduling Tests and choosing Centres

Candidates would have the facility of registering on a common portal and give a choice of Centres. Based on availability, they would be allotted Centres. The ultimate aim is to reach a stage wherein candidates can schedule their own tests at Centres of their choice.

OUTREACH ACTIVITIES BY NRA

Multiple languages

The CET would be available in a number of languages. This would greatly facilitate people from different parts of the country to take the exam and have an equal opportunity of being selected.

Scores – access to multiple recruitment agencies

Initially the scores would be used by the three major recruitment agencies. However, over a period of time it is expected that other recruitment agencies in the Central Government would adopt the same. Further, it would be open for other agencies in the public as well as private domain to adopt it if they so choose. Thus, in the long run, the CET score could be shared with other recruiting agencies in the Central Government, State Governments/Union Territories, Public Sector Undertaking and Private Sector. This would help such organizations in saving costs and time spent on recruitment.

Shortening the recruitment cycle

A single eligibility test would significantly reduce the recruitment cycle. Some Departments have indicated their intention to do away with any second level test and go ahead with recruitment on the basis of CET scores, Physical Tests and Medical examination. This would greatly reduce the cycle and benefit a large section of youth.

Financial Outlay

The Government has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 1517.57 crore for the National Recruitment Agency (NRA). The expenditure will be undertaken over a period of three years. Apart from setting up the NRA, costs will be incurred for setting up examination infrastructure in the 117 Aspirational Districts.

2. Cabinet approved "Mission Karmayogi"- National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)
 

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has approved launching of a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) with the following institutional framework in September, 2020: -

1. Prime Minister's Public Human Resources (HR) Council,
2. Capacity Building Commission.
3. Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets
   andthe technological platform for online training,
4. Coordination Unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Salient Features

NPCSCB has been carefully designed to lay the foundations for capacity building for Civil Servants so that they remain entrenched in Indian Culture and sensibilities and remain connected, with their roots, while they learn from the best institutions and practices across the world. The Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online Training-iGOTKarmayogiPlatform. The core guiding principles of the Programme will be:

Supporting Transition from 'Rules based' to 'Roles based* HR Management.Aligning work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies tothe requirements of the post.

1. To emphasize on 'on-site learning' to complement the ‘off-site’ learning,
2. To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure including that oflearning materials, institutions and personnel,
3. To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and Competencies (FRACs) approach and to create and deliver learningcontent relevant to the identified FRACs in every Government entity,
4. To make available to all civil servants, an opportunity to continuously build and strengthen their Behavioral, Functional and Domain Competencies intheir self-driven and mandated learning paths.
5. To enable all the Central Ministries and Departments and their Organizations to directly invest their resources towards co-creation and sharing the collaborative and common ecosystem of learning through an annual financialsubscription for every employee,
6. To encourage and partner with the best-in-class learning content creators including public training institutions, universities, start-tips and individualexperts,
7. To undertake data analytics in respect of data emit provided by iGOT- Karmayogi pertaining to various aspects of capacity building, content creation, user feedback and mapping of competencies and identify areas for policy reforms.

Objectives

It is also proposed to set up a Capacity Building Commission, with a view to ensure a uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on collaborative and co-sharing basis.

The role of Commission will be as under-

• To assist the PM Public Human Resources Council in approving the Annual Capacity Building Plans.
• To exercise functional supervision over all Central Training Institutions dealing with civil services capacity building.
• To create shared learning resources, including internal and external faculty and resource centers.
• To coordinate and supervise the implementation of the Capacity Building Plans with the stakeholder Departments.
• To make recommendations on standardization of training and capacity building, pedagogy and methodology
• To set norms for common mid-career training programs across all civil services.
• To suggest policy interventions required in the areas of HR Management and Capacity Building to the Government.

iGOT-Karmayogi platform brings the scale and state-of-the-art infrastructure to augment the capacities of over two crore officials in India. The platform is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class market place for content where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material will be made available. Besides capacity building, service matters like confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignment and notification of vacancies etc. would eventually be integrated with the proposed competency framework.

Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. Empowered with specific role-competencies, the civil servant will be able to ensure efficient service delivery of the highest quality standards.

Financial implications

To cover around 46 lakh Central employees, a sum of Rs.510.86 crore will be spent over a period of 5 years from 2020-21 to 2024-25. The expenditure is partly funded by multilateral assistance to the tune of USD 50 million. A wholly owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for NPCSCB will be set up under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. The SPV will be a "not-for-profit" company and will own and manage iGOT-Karmayogiplatform. The SPV will create and operationalize the content, market place and manage key business services ofiGOT-Karmayogiplatform, relating to content validation, independent proctored assessments and telemetry data availability. The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India. An appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework will also be put in place for performance evaluation of all users of the iGOT-Karmayogiplatform so as to generate a dashboard view of Key Performance Indicators.

Background

Capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs and performing core governance functions. A transformational change in Civil Service Capacity is proposed to be affected by organically linking the transformation of work culture, strengthening public institutions and adopting modern technology to build civil service capacity with the overall aim of ensuring efficient delivery of services to citizens.

A Public Human Resources Council comprising of select Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, eminent public HR practitioners, thinkers, global thought leaders and Public Service functionaries under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Prime Minister will serve as the apex body for providing strategic direction to the task of Civil Services Reform and capacity building.

3. Doorstep Service for submission of Digital Life Certificate through Postman launched
Huge relief for pensioners to submit Life certificate while staying at home.

India Post Payments Bank, IPPB of Department of Posts & Meity have successfully launched the initiative of the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare: “Doorstep Service for submission of Digital Life Certificate through Postman” in November, 2020. The facility to submit life certificate online through Jeevan Pramaan Portal was launched by the Hon'ble Prime Minister in November, 2014 with the objective to provide a convenient and transparent facility to pensioners for submission of Life Certificate.

Ever since, DoPPW, under the able guidance of Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State, Ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions, has been leveraging technology year after year, to make the system seamless and more and more convenient for the elderly Pensioners.

In order to make this facility available across the country, DoPPW roped in the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) and utilise its huge network of Postmen and Gramin Dak Sevaks in providing doorstep facility to pensioners for submission of life certificate digitally.

IPPB has customized its Bank software and dovetailed the same with Jeevan Pramaan software of Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) and UIDAI, to provide DLC services at the doorstep of Pensioners. This facility shall be in addition to other facilities such as withdrawal of money from bank account etc. while sitting at home. IPPB is utilising its national network of more than 1,36,000 access points in Post Offices and more than 1,89,000 Postmen & Gramin Dak Sevaks with smart phones and biometric devices to provide Doorstep Banking Services. As a result a huge number of pensioners across the country shall be able to avail doorstep service through Postmen/ Gramin Dak Sevak, without visiting to bank branch or standing in a queue outside the bank branches.

In order to avail “doorstep service for submission of DLC” through IPPB, pensioners can get detailed information on ippbonline.com. It is a chargeable service and will be available to all Central Government Pensioners across the country irrespective of the fact their pension accounts are in different bank. The process to avail “doorstep service of DLC” through IPPB can be viewed @ Youtube(Pension DOPPW) and facebook of D/o Pension & Pensioners Welfare . In view of current pandemic, it is a huge relief for pensioners to submit Life certificate while staying at home.

4. Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh launched the revamped Scheme for PM’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2020 and web portal www.pmawards.gov.in
 

In July, 2020, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh launched the revamped PM’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration and the web portal www.pmawards.gov.in. Addressing the Central Ministries and State/ UT Governments on this occasion, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the Scheme has been revamped in tune with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s governance model of citizen participation. He said that the Mantra of “Maximum Governance, Minimum Government” is incomplete without citizen participation and citizen centricity and added that transparency and accountability are its twin hallmark.

The Scheme Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2020, has been revamped to recognize the performance of the District Collectors towards outcome indicators, economic development, peoples’ participation and redressal of public grievances. Nominations have been called in four major categories – District Performance Indicators Programme, Innovation General Category, Aspirational Districts Program and Namami Gange Program. Under the District Performance Indicators Programme, District Collectors would be evaluated on their contribution to Inclusive Development through credit flow to priority sector, Promoting peoples movements - Jan Bhagidari through effective implementation of priority sector schemes of SBM (Gramin) and SBM (Urban) programs, Improving service delivery and redressal of Public Grievances. The Innovations category of the Scheme has been broad-based to provide separate award categories for innovations at National, State and District level. The period of consideration for the awards is 1^st April 2018 to 31^st March 2020. In all 15 Awards would be conferred under the Scheme in 2020.

5. Interviews for jobs abolished in 23 States and 8 UTs in India so far
 

Interview for jobs has been abolished in 23 States and 8 Union Territories of India. This is a follow up to the abolition of interview for Group-B (Non- Gazetted) and Group - C posts in the Central Government ever since 2016.

It was on the 15th of August 2015, while speaking from the rampart of Red Fort on the occasion of Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested abolition of interview and making the job selection totally on the basis of written test because whenever an interview call was received by a candidate, his entire family would get disturbed with apprehension and anxiety. On a quick follow up to the Prime Minister’s advice, the DoPT undertook an expeditious exercise and within three months completed the entire process to announce abolition of interview for recruitment in Central Government with effect from 1st January, 2016.

6. Three new Information Commissioners administered oath of office in November

The Chief Information Commissioner Shri Y.K. Sinha administered the oath of office to Information Commissioners Shri Heeralal Samariya, Ms. Saroj Punhani and Shri Uday Mahurkar at a swearing-in ceremony organized in Central Information Commission in November this year. With their induction, the total number of Information Commissioners including the Chief Information Commissioner has risen to 8 in the Central Information Commission.

Shri Heeralal Samariya, a former IAS officer, was Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment in Government of India before retirement. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. His area of expertise includes Administration and Governance.

Ms. Saroj Punhani, an IA&AS officer, before joining as Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission, was holding the post of Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General (HR & Training) in Government of India. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities. Her area of expertise includes Administration and Governance.

Shri Uday Mahurkar, a veteran journalist, before joining as Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission, was functioning as Senior Deputy Editor with a leading media house. He graduated from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Indian History, Culture and Archaeology. His area of expertise includes his vast experience in media.

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