The Deputy Commisioner’s office in Noklak. The Rising Peoples’ Party (RPP) today called for administrative reforms in order to improve governance in Nagaland. (Morung File Photo)
DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 13 (MExN): The Rising Peoples’ Party (RPP) today said that administrative reforms are required in order to usher in good governance in the State.
A press release from the RPP recalled how last year, the state NCS Association was in uproar over the Centre’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) notification that only IAS officers should be appointed as District Collectors/Commissioners in the state. “The association hit back stating that these ‘Suitcase bureaucrats’, or the IAS officers posted to the state would leave on any pretext they could find,” the RPP said.
It said that the recent “uproar” against the SP of Tuensang is a “case in point of high-handedness and a stubborn inability to respect local sentiments.” “The DC of Mon threatening to stop all central and state schemes unless the two villages, Yansa and Yannu, stop their belligerent attitude is a classic instance of an officer inflaming a situation by resorting to colonial era method of issuing autocratic diktats,” the RPP added.
The RPP recognized that the state also had the “good fortune of outsiders initiating great things in the state, not the least of whom was the Late AM Gokhale, the quintessential IAS officer who implemented the concept of decentralization – the VDB, in the villages with a no holds barred attitude.”
“Many lessons are learnt through grit and grind but unlike Gokhale the vast majority seek comfort by way of deputation in Delhi and elsewhere,” it however stated.
As such, the RPP said it is imperative that local officers from the NCS, NPS & allied services are given the required push to become DCs and SPs of the districts at the right age – young age rather, so that the continuity of good administration is maintained.
It pointed out that the normal situation in the state is to confer IAS only after about 25-30 years of service. This, it termed as “highly irrational,” adding that this seniority system is “monotonous and a career killer.” “It inhibits creativity while perpetuating the chaltahai culture in the entire edifice of the bureaucracy. It kills the hunger, the zeal and the drive in an officer,” the RPP said.
The RPP opined that conferment based on aptitude, rather than seniority, will instill dynamism in governance and make the bureaucracy more competitive.
The party claimed that it would ensure that an officer’s performance report and talent or aptitude is given more weightage over seniority when case for conferment is made.
“Given the present situation where the NPSC has utterly failed to identify talented officers – thanks to the rot called manipulation in the interview stage, it is important that talented officers are identified in the initial years of one’s service,” it added.
The RPP also assured to ensure that appropriate cadre review is carried out allowing for officers from the NCS, NPS & allied services background the opportunity to reach the top of the administrative pyramid, up to the level of Additional Chief Secretary, the second highest post in the administrative setup which at present is reserved only for the directly recruited IAS officers.
“IAS conferment at an early point in an officers’ career is particularly strong in the southern states. Even in states like UP conferment usually takes place after 15-20 years of service, whereas in Kerala and Maharashtra it may happen even in 10 years,” the RPP pointed out.
Nagaland, it said, cannot be the exception, adding that the RPP would take appropriate steps if the Naga people give it an opportunity to serve them.
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