No policy on retirement for ad hoc employees — Neiphiu Rio

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 20 (EMN): Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, who is also the minister-in-charge of Personnel and Administrative Reform, said the ad hoc or contingency employees are temporary in nature and therefore, there is no exclusive policy for them on attaining retirement age.

He stated this while replying to a starred question posed by MLA Yitachu at the ongoing 13th state assembly session in Kohima on Tuesday. 

‘Those who are enjoying regular pay under work charge or ad hoc after 30 years of service have been given the retirement benefit and the sanctioned post is published, so there is no new appointment. The work charge and ad hoc appointments are without work but being paid and are therefore wasting a lot of state resources’, Rio said.

He specifically mentioned that they have been carrying on through political pressure as work-charged employees.

 It is interesting to note that there have been many instances where ad hoc appointments continued for many years, he said, adding that the government is trying to streamline the appointees but there is no concrete policy. 

‘The ad hoc appointment has been made against some vacant sanctioned post or without a sanctioned post for a fixed period in order to meet the immediate requirements of the department. Their appointment should not continue beyond the short-term period for which they are appointed. Once the project is over, their service also should be terminated,’ Rio said.

‘Earlier, the High Court in its order dated July 28, 2017 had said that those employees who have completed more than three years of continuous service could be regularised following the policy of regularisation of the trained ad hoc appointees against the sanctioned post. But, the HC restrained the regularisation’, he informed.

Though there is no specific policy, the state government is trying to phase out these groups of people by giving them some justice, he added.