Collective commitment required to address environment issues: VP

Long stays of officers in postings breed corruption and remedial measures should be taken to ensure that they do not stay beyond the prescribed time limit in any ministry, a parliamentary panel has told the government.

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“There has been a rotational policy for all officers, but it is not being implemented in toto,” the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice said in its 145th report, which was tabled in Parliament on March 27, on the Demands for Grants (2025-26) pertaining to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

There are officers who are posted in potentially favourable ministries or places for over eight to nine years, especially in economic and sensitive ministries. Some of them are continuing their stay although their heads of organisations have been replaced four to five times. This trend should be assessed, the panel asserted.

Instances have come to notice, where officers have manoeuvred their postings in such a way that their whole career has been in the same ministry and hence such lacuna needs to be plugged without any delay, the report stated.

The committee's observation came while it was reviewing the working of the Central Secretariat Services (CSS) and Central Secretariat Stenographers' Services (CSSS) -- the mainstay of the Central Secretariat's functioning.

“It has been brought to the notice of the committee that all gazetted officers, especially in the CSS and CSSS, are rotated on the basis of sensitive and non-sensitive postings and at sensitive places, officers are replaced after (a) tenure of three years. Similarly, ministries have also been categorised as economic and non-economic,” the report said.

The parliamentary panel stated that long stays at particular seats or places bred corruption and remedial measures needed to be taken immediately. All transfers should be made immediately as per the policy and no officer should stay beyond the prescribed time limit in any ministry.