Mr.Modi now a strategic HR manager, to analyse officials skills to fill up top vacancies - Anil Associates
NEW DELHI: Over the past fortnight, two senior bureaucrats, recently empanelled as secretaries to the government of India, were surprised when they got a call from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). They were asked about their areas of interest and the departments they might be interested in handling as and when an opening comes up.
The phone calls are part of a larger informal human resources competency mapping exercise being driven by the PMO to identify the best officials suited for vacancies that have arisen and would arise in the central government in the coming six months. The idea behind the initiative steered by additional principal secretary in the PMO PK Mishra, is to get the right men for the right job to implement the Modi government's agenda over the next three to five years, said officials.
This human resource management exercise is part of the Prime Minister's efforts to make a clean break from the UPA tradition where ministers had a disproportionate say in babu appointments, said officials. There has been no purge in the bureaucracy as many policymakers had feared after the change of government onMay 26 another sign that this government is thinking differently from its predecessors.
The manpower planning effort is not restricted to the top echelons of departments and autonomous agencies, but includes roles at the joint secretary and additional secretary levels too. Indicating that the Modi regime would rather think through its appointments rather than fill up vacancies in a huff, one of the first vacancies to arise under this government, for a joint secretary in charge of exploration issues in the petroleum and natural gas ministry, is yet to be filled.
said another official, adding that ministries have been asked to upload all major vacancies that are arising in their domains, including their public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies onto an online vacancy tracking system.
