Schemes for retiring officials for voluntary work: Rajya Sabha Q&A

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF PERSONNEL,PUBLIC GRIEVANCES AND PENSIONS

RAJYA SABHA

STARRED QUESTION NO-146

ANSWERED ON-10.03.2016

Schemes for retiring officials for voluntary work

146 . Shri A. K. Selvaraj

(a) whether it is a fact that Government has started two initiatives i.e. Sankalp and Anubhav for engaging retiring officials for voluntary work and later leaving a note on ones achievement in service, if so, the details thereof;

(b) whether it is also a fact that not many retiring employees opted for the said two initiatives and there was nearly zero response to them; and

(c) whether it is also a fact that due to lack of response, Government organised or planning to organise many more workshops, if so, the details thereof?

ANSWER

Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office. (DR. JITENDRA SINGH)

(a) to (c): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) to (c) OF RAJYA SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 146 for 10.03.2016.

(a) & (b): An initiative, “Sankalp” was launched in January 2014 which aims at channelizing skill, experience and time available with retired government servants into meaningful, voluntary contribution to society. This would add to the social capital of the country and at the same time restore dignity and purpose to life post-retirement. So far, around 1600 pensioners, 19 pensioners association and 16 organisations have successfully registered under Sankalp.

Another initiative, “Anubhav” was launched in February 2015 which provides a platform for retiring employees to share outstanding work accomplished during their working in the Government and also to preserve as well as benefit from the institutional memory of the retiree employee for better governance. The retiring employees may, voluntarily submit their write-up along with their pension papers. An online system has been developed to enable the retiring employees to upload these write-ups in a methodical manner. Till date 78 Ministries/Departments have been registered, 1249 write-ups have been published and 411 write-ups are being processed by the Head of Office for uploading on the web portal as per laid down procedure. A total of 40 write-ups have been rejected.

(c): To date the department has conducted 28 Pre-Retirement counseling Workshops and 7 Training of Trainers (TOT) Workshops under the initiative “Sankalp” for employees retiring from Ministries/Departments at New Delhi and for Central Armed Police Forces at different locations all over the country. Further, to sensitize the Ministries/Departments, Awareness workshops on ‘Anubhav’ have been organized by this Department on 24.03.2015, 24.04.2015 and 25.05.2015. Review meeting have been held on 08.05.2015, 10.07.2015 and 22.09.2015. Recently a combined Workshop on “Sankalp and Anubhav” was organized on a large scale at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on 19.02.2016. Six best write-ups under ‘Anubhav’ were also conferred awards. The Department organises such workshops from time to time to create awareness amongst the retiring employees.