Now, Group-A officers to submit 'Self Appraisal Report' online

Kolkata: In a unique initiative, Bengal government is all set to introduce an online system of 'Self Appraisal Report' for all the Group-A officers from June this year, bringing more transparency in the entire system of administration.

The new system will help the government to access, through a centralized format, the data of every individual officer, their performance and qualities at the click

of a mouse.

State Finance department has given the platform where Group-A officers have to submit data of their achievements, the areas where they performed exceptionally or in areas they lagged behind, from June this year after the portal goes live.

This move will not only fix the accountability of the bureaucrats but also enable the government to recognise the best performing officers in each department. For the smooth management of the 'Self Appraisal Report', a concept of nodal officer has been introduced.

According to a recent notification issued by the state Finance department, the nodal officer shall be a Group-A officer who will create the chain of 'Self Appraisal Report' (SAR) flow in the system and specify the reporting channel in online mode.

There shall be at least one nodal officer for each cadre of a department. The nodal officers may be created in the department, directorate, district, sub-division or block level depending upon the stakeholders created in the system, who will authenticate the SAR flow from employee to reporting, reviewing or accepting authorities.

The nodal officer shall also be responsible for defining the system i.e whether the flow of SAR will be offline or online.

The nodal officer may also change the reporting/reviewing/accepting authorities with specific reason.

Only one SAR shall be written by an officer for any particular period of the appraisal year and there will be a single reporting, reviewing or accepting authority at each level of assessment who will be specified in the reporting chain/hierarchy by the concerned nodal officer.

There would not be more than one person assessing an SAR in the capacity of reporting, reviewing or accepting authority for a given a period of time under any circumstances. In case of a delay in appraisal by any of the reporting, reviewing or accepting authorities or for any other reason, the nodal officer may take away the SAF from that authority and allot it to his successor or to his higher authority to make the assessment.

The appraisal including assessment against the attributes will be made by the reporting authority with respect to the self appraisal submitted by the concerned officer.

The reviewing authority shall record his remarks in the SAR, while accepting authority will accept the self appraisal report by making his own assessment appropriately. The cadre controlling authority for the cadres will decide whether the SAR is to be disclosed to the officer.

After coming to power, the Mamata Banerjee government has stressed on the comprehensive development of e-governance to bring in more transparency in the administration and also to make officers accountable.