The Lieutenant Governor’s Administration in the Union Territory of Jammu Kashmir has taken serious view as 147 JK Administrative Services officers having failed to submit online Self Assessment of Annual Performance Reports (APRs) on ‘JK Sparrow platform’ for the year 2020-2021.
Official sources told the Excelsior that taking serious view, the General Administration Department has sent a `caution note’ to these officials and gave them last opportunity to submit APRs on or before August 31, 2021.
Sources further revealed that while majority of these officers are Tehsildars and Block Development Officers, but some of them included the officers of the cadre of Deputy Commissioners, Additional Deputy Commissioners, Special Secretaries, Additional Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, district level officers, ACRs, SDMs besides Joint Directors and RTOs.
Commissioner/Secretary to Govt, General Administration Department, MK Dwivedi in an order issued today said that despite the extension of timeline for processing of APRs of officials, 147 JKAS officers have not submitted their self assessment for completing the process.
“The non-seriousness on the part of these officers can defeat the very essence of shifting to online mode of filing APRs for Jammu Kashmir Administrative Service. These officers are accordingly directed to complete their Self Assessment of APRs on `SPARROW’ platform by August 31, 2021 positively and in case of non-compliance, the APRs shall be ‘Force Forwarded’ to next authority who shall deal with such cases in terms of Para III (I) of the APR Guidelines notified vide Government Order No. 1311-GADof 2001 dated 09-11-2001,” Dwivedi’s order said.
While referring to the earlier Govt order No. 581-JK(GAD) of 2021 dated 06-07-2021, Dwivedi said the last date for the submission of online Self Assessment of Annual Performance Reports on ‘J&K SPARROW’ platform, for the assessment year 2020-2021, after giving some relaxations in view of Covid situation, was fixed as August 31, 2021 but many officers have failed to submit the same so far.
Official sources said that an Annual Performance Report of the work and conduct of every officer/ official of the Government should be maintained properly. The APR shall in each case be maintained by the accepting authority and where accepting authority is the Minister, it shall be maintained by the concerned Administrative Department.
They said the Secretaries to the Government shall obtain statements from the Heads of Departments on the performa, showing name of officers in respect of whom the reports have been initiated, reviewed/ accepted and this should be monitored from time to time as to ensure that the APRs in respect of all the officials in the Department are written, reviewed and accepted.
It further revealed that every initiating officer shall ensure that a set containing two formats of APRs, is sent to the officer (s) to be reported upon by or before March 31 every year, for causing the officer ( to be reported upon) to record his Self Assessment by or before April 30 on the APRs for the preceding financial year. And in case, the officer to be reported upon fails to record his self assessment within the reasonable time, the initiating officer shall initiate the APR after recording that the officer concerned failed to record his self-assessment.
“When the initiating/ reviewing/ accepting authority is related to the officer reported upon, such authority should, while recording his remarks, clearly mention the nature of his relationship. The APRs should be sent to the concerned Heads of respective Departments for review and acceptance of the respective departments under intimation to the concerned Administrative Secretary,” the sources added.(By Daily Excelsior )