Not many outside government service know the plight of the employees ahead of promotion season. If the annual confidential report, to be completed by their superiors, is not in order or done on time, they are stuck.
But in what could bring relief to State government officials, the e-Governance Department successfully implemented e-PAR (Performance Appraisal Report) for Group A officials for 2018-19. The authorities are hoping to extend similar online appraisals — which ensure transparency in the process — for other employees once the system stabilises. Over the past several months, about 17,000 Group A officials were mapped after the State government approved the project and amended the service rules. Now, e-PAR has been generated for around 12,000 employees; the rest are expected to be covered shortly.
One of the important benefits of the new system is that employees will have access to the opinions of their superiors. “About 65 % of e-PARs have been generated already. It is a transparent system. The official can view the comments and will also have the opportunity to appeal if he or she does not agree with the comments,” said V. Manjula, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms. The online system helps keep track of the report and ensure it is returned on time, she added.
“The project may be extended to other groups of officials and employees once it is stabilised for Group A. We should stabilise this project by next year,” said Ms. Manjula. The completion of e-PAR is expected by March next year. “Completion of e-PAR will be made time-bound from the next financial year. The deadlines will be stricter,” she said.
‘Good response’
H.L. Prabhakar, project director at e-Governance Department, who is implementing e-PAR, said many departments have already completed the work and the initiative was getting good response from officials.
A senior official in the Secretariat acknowledged that it would help young officials because the confidential reports for most senior officials were not accessible till now. “I did not know the remarks made by my seniors. Often, one has to run behind previous supervisors because the confidential report is not even written on time. The new system is transparent and could help young officials.”
Going paperless
With the Chief Minister's office in paperless mode, efforts are on to train the Secretaries in Ministers’ offices to bring all Ministers to the e-office platform. Currently, files go to Ministers in the physical form. The petitions coming to the Chief Minister’s Office, which shifted to e-office on November 1, are being sent in an electronic format.
Also, from January 1, the government will implement e-office at the district level, bringing the offices of the Deputy Commissioner, Superintendent of Police, and Deputy Conservator of Forests under it.
According to Ms. Manjula, after the State Secretariat was brought under e-office, 4.5 lakh files have been opened in e-office. As of now, 218 offices across Karnataka have been made e-offices, she said, adding that this has made the tracking of pending files and their location easy. “It has reduced the use of paper quite a bit,” she said.
