LAHORE - The Punjab government has stressed the officers to implement the provisions of Promotion Policy-2010 in letter and spirit.
The government ordered the officers to consider complete service record of an official to be promoted to a higher scale, a notification issued by the S&GAD said.
As per para 15 of the policy says: “The assessment of an officer should be based on his entire service record and not only on a portion of it. However, it left to the assessing authority to give greater weightage to the more recent reports, but the older reports should not be completely ignored and should be taken into consideration for an overall evaluation of the service record.”
The document further said that incomplete ACR (Annual Confidential Report) dossier, especially last full year’s report is one of the causes for deferment of promotion, among many others. Earlier, some administrative departments do not follow provision of the promotions policy while considering the promotion of officials.
It was further lacunae that working papers were placed before the Departmental Promotion Committee with incomplete or last five years service record that the document said was severe violation of the new Promotion Policy. All autonomous bodies will also follow the same instruction while promoting the officials through DPCs, it held.
The Secretary Regulation of the S&GAD with the approval of the Chief Secretary, further warned the authorities that failing to act upon the advice would drag the departments into litigation besides setting a bad practice.
As per the promotion policy, the promotion to posts reserved for promotion subject to his suitability and assessment on seniority of the officer, satisfactorily completion of probation period, qualification and experience. Moreover, the official should have length of service as prescribed in Punjab Civil Servants Rules 2003, service record comprising (Performance Evaluation Reports) PERs, award of minor or major penalities and successful completion of mandatory training and passing of prescribed departmental examinations.
The policy about the superseded official or officer says that he will become eligible for consideration after the specific period of time.
Talking about the procedure for processing cases by the DPC or PSB, the policy says that while considering promotion of an official in order of seniority, it will not carry any extra weightage for the determination of merit for promotion to selection posts. The PERs will be given due importance but will not be the only criterion for promotion to selection posts.
Moreover, promotion against non-selection posts will be made on the basis of seniority-cum-fitness. After thorough consideration the PSB or DPC would recommend an official for promotion to next grade, recommend for supersession or defer the case giving reasons that might include failure to submit PER to reporting officer, incomplete dossier required by the selection board or committee or record contains adverse remarks, disciplinary proceedings, anticorruption cases.
An officer of the S&GAD confirmed that it was common practice among the officers not to sign and submit ACRs of the subordinates on regular basis. He said that usually the officials had to get the reports signed from the officers concerned that itself was violation of the confidentiality. He said that one major reason behind slow promotions was incomplete service record.