Postings/transfers to serve the Department's need rather than the individual's desire - CBDT
Transfer is a major commercial activity in the Government of India involving hundreds of Crores of rupees - in this multi-billion rupee business, the loser is always the Government of India and of course the poor millions of Indians.
More than half the official time of the babu is spent either in getting a transfer, avoiding a transfer or discussing about the transfer. And the powers that be ensure that as far as possible, employees are transferred to or posted in places which are most inconvenient to them. This keeps the transfer industry flourishing! The amount of public money wasted in the name of power of transfer vested (wasted) in some senior officers is mind boggling. A transferred employee costs the Nation at least a Lakh of rupees and just count the number of officers transferred every year and multiply it with a Lakh of rupees and you will find that our babus have just swallowed the Delhi Metro Project.
In many of the Central Excise Commissionerates, hundreds of Superintendents are routinely transferred every year for a tenure of one year to places which are not popular. After about 11 months they are brought back and another batch of a few hundred officers are transferred. The whole machinery seems to be engaged only in the business of transfers. What happens to government work or its precarious fiscal condition is nobody's bother. Why should somebody be transferred just because somebody else should be transferred? Why can't the whole business of transfers be computerised and done strictly within the norms? The Business will collapse and nobody likes it.
In such a situation the CBDT's Circular that it has now been decided that postings/transfers would have to be effected to serve the Department's need rather than the individual candidates' desire, comes as a whiff of fresh air into the polluted precincts. Let us hope CBDT will be able to live up to the lofty ideals and then maybe CBEC will follow suit.
CBDT F.No . A-12021/27/2008-Ad.VII Dated: December 23, 2008