The idea to link annual increment of Central government employees to their performance is not a brand new one. Even now, promotions and a part of the annual increment of an employee are decided based on performance reflected in the Performance Appraisal Return (APR) which his/her superior officer prepares. Performers would get 4 per cent and others a lesser percentage. Most employees, including All India Service officers, are part of this process. Most officers know that this is an arbitrary system with no transparency, giving superiors an undue hegemony over the assessees.
It also makes employees vulnerable to the whims and fancies of the superiors: those who do the bidding of their bosses would score excellent marks but the others who follow their conscience, and the law of the land, may end up losers. There are instances of officers suffering at the time of their promotions just because they spoke up their mind. All corrupt officers invariably manage to score 'outstanding' grades in their PAR.
This system makes the relations between an official and boss similar to king and his servants, and this can hardly be a system we should follow in a democracy. The problem needs to be diagnosed properly: the issue is not related to linking performance with increments, but the very method of assessment. Objectivity in the “assement form" and arbitrariness in filling up the form is how one could describe the present method of PAR.
What is the way out?
We need an open and transparent system that allows 360 degree assessment of all employees. Everyone would be assessed for his/her performance by the superiors, colleagues and juniors so that the performance report would reflect the work one does. In certain jobs the clientele also should have a role in assessing the performance of the officer.
The performance of an officer who works for the betterment of vulnerable sections of people may best be judged by the people whom he/she was supposed to serve as they have a better picture of the work done for them. For example, a tribal development officer will be up in the hills and down in the valleys working for them. They would be better placed to judge him/her than the superior officer sitting in the secretariat who will have to depend on the files alone.
People deserve better service from the bureaucracy, and any attempt to refine it should follow a proper diagnostic review of the present system and thereafter introducing a logical remedy. It should never result in aggravating a pathetic situation, putting honest officers at the mercy of corrupt and powerful overlords.
(N Prasanth is a 2007-batch Kerala cadre IAS officer. Views are personal.)
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