After amending retirement rules, Centre begins process to digitise employees’ service books in J&K

Srinagar: A month after amending retirement rules, the Centre has decided to digitise service books of all government employees in Jammu and Kashmir.

This is the second big decision in the last one month.  In October, the government amended civil service rules to allow the administration to retire government employees at any time after completing 22 years of service or attaining the age of 48 years “in the public interest”.

Official documents accessed by The Kashmir Monitor reveal that the Centre has decided to introduce electronic- Human Resource Management System (e-HRMS) under Manav Sampada, which essentially focuses on digitization of service records of government employees.

“The e-service books shall be prepared digitally for better management of service records through software developed in connection with e-HRM system (Manav Sampada) as per Union territory requirements to enable employees to get entry alerts for immediate information,” reads the document.

Manav Sampada is a generalized human resource management solution for government departments. This system has been developed to help departments in decision making and monitoring of manpower planning, recruitments, postings, promotions, and transfers.

The major focus of Manav Sampada is to maintain the service book of all government employees in electronic format. In the first phase, the service books of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) officers.

As per the document, the government has directed all the departments to get the service records of the officials of IAS and KAS cadre scanned.

 “In order to create PDF files of service books of all the IAS and JKAS in the first go, it is impressed upon of the department to scan service books of officers of IAS and KAS cadre working in their department in the shape of PDF  and forward the same to general administration department on following email addresses,” it said.

The government has directed the department to provide information of the employees to the General Administration Department before December 10.

It has also convened a meeting on December 23.

Jammu and Kashmir has already taken a step to digitise the entire records of employees in order to save the transportation of files during annual Darbar Move.

The government already took a decision to provide Rs 5 crore for the task to the Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency.

The employees meanwhile welcomed the move, saying it will protect and preserve their records.

“It is a good step by the government. Earlier our records were damaged in the fire and other accidents. We want our records to be preserved,” Fayaz Ahmad Shabnam, senior Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC) leader said.