National
Staff survey yet to be done for local level
The Organisation and Management Committee of the Federal Affairs and General Administration Ministry has yet to complete the O&M survey for staff deployment at the local federal units. Earlier, the panel had recommended interim staff numbers for the local governments.Prithvi Man Shrestha
The Organisation and Management Committee of the Federal Affairs and General Administration Ministry has yet to complete the O&M survey for staff deployment at the local federal units. Earlier, the panel had recommended interim staff numbers for the local governments.
The committee headed by Secretary Shankar Prasad Koirala has proposed around 45,000 public servants for the federal government and 16,000 staffers at the provincial level. Permanent adjustment of government officials will be made based on the recommendations, according to officials.
As per the committee’s interim recommendations, there will be 57,354 government staffers at the rural municipalities, municipalities and the district coordination committees.
“We have completed the O&M survey of all the government offices that will remain under central and the provincial governments,” said a senior official at the ministry said. “The Cabinet has already approved organisational structure and staffing in some offices under the central and provincial governments while many proposals are still pending at the Cabinet.”
Once the O&M survey of the local units is complete, it will open the door for permanent adjustment of government staffers. “As we have not got the details of staffers employed by the erstwhile local bodies, including the service, group, sub-group and levels they belong to, we have not been able to conduct an O&M [survey] of local units,” said a member of the committee.
The committee had got six months since April to complete the survey. According to the Employees Adjustment Act, staff redeployment will begin once the O&M surveys are ready for all levels.
“We can issue a notice asking civil servants to apply for the adjustment process once the organisation structure and staffing at all the offices under the three tiers of government are confirmed,” said Rudra Singh Tamang, joint-secretary at the Federal Affairs Ministry. “It seems it will take some time to complete the task of O&M.”
Currently, the federal government has mobilised the staffers at the provinces and local governments temporarily.
The committee did not conduct the O&M survey of the Defence, Law and Foreign Affairs ministries as well as the Supreme Court since they have constitutional jurisdiction only at the central level. So staff members in these agencies will remain the same.
Officials said that the total number of officials employed in the three levels could rise by a few thousands from the current strength of civil servants. They hope that the O&M survey of the local units would recommend a similar number of staffers as the numbers recommended for interim deployment of staffers at the local level.
In such a situation, the number of civil servants in all the three tiers of government could total around 118,000. The current strength of civil servants is 89,900 while around 18,000 staffers were appointed by the erstwhile local bodies. The latter will be adjusted only at the local level, according to the law.