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| Tampering date of birth is rampant in J&K | | | Early Times Special
JAMMU, August 18: Some days ago, the public health engineering (PHE), irrigation and flood control department issued an interesting notification urging hundreds of employees to seek voluntary retirement. Alternatively, they have been asked to undergo age determination test.
The reason for this notice is that the government suspects that a large number of employees have been continuing in service long after they have attained the age of superannuation.
The employees under scanner have been urged to seek voluntary retirement within the next three months. In that case, they have been promised full pensionary benefits.
In case such employees fail to follow the government directive, the department plans to subject them to age determination test. If it is found after medical examination that they have already attained the age of superannuation, they will be kicked out and recovery proceedings initiated against them.
The notice became necessary as it has been found now that the dates of birth of helpers, and linemen had not been properly recorded. These facts came to light in the recent past after the PHE minister, Mr Taj Mohiuddin, reviewed the staff position closely.
Senior officials say they learnt about this apparent wrong-doing once mass transfers were effected. The minister is categorical that there is no going back on this notice and to hold firm on rationalization of staff.
In fact, on the minister’s initiative, at least 21,000 employees were transferred and many of them visited their offices for the first time. It was then that Mr Taj Mohiddin suggested that the employees overstaying in the department beyond the age of superannuation should be issued this notice.
According to conservative estimates, there are at least 4,000 such employees who have already crossed their age of superannuation but continuing on the rolls of the department.
Some years ago, an IAS officer (promoted from the KAS and not a direct recruit) had tampered his date of birth. Being a blue-eyed boy of some influential bureaucrats, he continued in service even after an official inquiry had proved beyond doubt that he had tampered his date of birth by four years.
Finally, he was dismissed from service, retrospectively, when the Central Government verified his antecedents later.
According to some officials who had earlier served in the general administration department, tampering of date of birth is rampant in many departments, particularly consumer affairs and public distribution, rural development department and agriculture production.
These officials said that the beneficiaries often manage to hush up the cases which linger on for years altogether. In many cases, the inquiries into the alleged tampering takes so long that even the employees retire from the service and enjoy full pension benefits.
Senior officials in the PHE department said the employees are resorting to arm-twisting tactics by threatening to go on strike against the new transfer policy. However, the minister has issued clear instructions that neither should the transfer orders should neither be amended nor rescinded.
The minister’s firmness has led to a situation where a large number of employees, who have (over)stayed in the department, may now opt for voluntary retirement and create jobs for youngsters, the officials said. So far, they have been trying to take the help of the local legislators but to no avail.
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