Law passed for allocating civil servants under federal setup

KATHMANDU, Oct 7: Paving the way for adjusting the civil servants in the new federal setup, the parliament on Friday endorsed a much-awaited Civil Servants Adjustment Bill.

With the endorsement of the bill, the government can adjust the postings of the civil servants under federal, provincial and local levels based on three major priorities. Seniority, personal choice of the civil servants and their permanent residency will be taken as major bases for the adjustments. While adjusting the civil servants under the new federal structure, the posting of the spouses will also be adjusted as far as possible.

After being adjusted under one federal tier, civil servants won’t get transfer to other tiers for at least five years.

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Bill bars local units from recruiting civil servants

The government can recruit civil servants through the provincial level after setting up provincial public service commissions in all seven provinces. 

In the bill passed Friday, the parliament has removed the government proposal to bar any fresh recruitment of civil servants for a year until the adjustment process is concluded. “The bill has paved the way for recruitment of civil servants round the year removing the original proposal which had barred fresh recruitment for a year,” said General Administration Minister Tek Bahadur Basnet in the House meeting on Friday.

State Affairs Committee of the parliament has also proposed providing up to seven years’ gratuity in lump sum to any civil servant who is not interested in working under the new arrangement.

hough trade unions were pressing the parliament to provide one level promotion to the civil servants being adjusted to the provincial and local levels, the parliament has not heeded the demand. 

The civil servants posted to the provincial and the local levels should join their new offices within 35 days and failure to attend the office within the period will result in their dismissal, according to the bill. But before removing a civil servant their job, they are given a chance to furnish clarifications and the Public Service Commission has to be consulted.

According to the Ministry of General Administration, there are about 83,000 employees in various government services. The bill has proposed constituting a Survey and Monitoring Committee to conduct an O&M (organization and management) survey before their adjustment in the provincial and local levels and before recruiting new civil servants. The committee will be given six months to make recommendations.

MoGA will ask the respective government bodies to provide details of the employees within three months.