Assam employees

Guwahati, Aug 05: In a first, 99 non-gazetted state government employees in Assam were on Friday presented with Lok Sewa Puraskar (Public Service Award) for dedication, work ethics, and punctuality.

While 89 employees were awarded district-level awards in different districts, 10 other employees selected at the state level were presented with the awards by chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at a function in Guwahati.

The awards were presented on the occasion of Lok Kalyan Diwas to mark the death anniversary of Assam’s first chief minister and Bharat Ratna, Gopinath Bordoloi.

The awardees were presented with a year’s extension of service, ₹25,000, and a citation.

“Bordoloi’s contribution to the nation and Assam has been immense both prior to Independence when he tried to protect the state from unchecked migration from East Bengal (present Bangladesh) and after Independence when he worked tirelessly for Assam’s all-round development,” said Sarma.

“We decided to mark his death anniversary as Lok Kalyan Diwas with respect to Bordoloi who spent his entire life in public service and start a new initiative of awarding state government employees based on their work ethics, honesty, punctuality and other human values,” he added.

According to the state government, the awards are presented to “acknowledge, recognize, reward and record” the performance of non-gazetted state government employees.
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The guideline for the selection process of the awardees, which was decided after proposals and suggestions from different districts and departments, listed work ethics, punctuality, and integrity as the three main criteria with an additional one of “any other criteria which may be decided by the screening and or selection committee”.

The government constituted two committees, one for screening and another state level, for evaluation and selection of the proposals received from different districts and departments.

The screening committee was headed by the secretary (general administration department) and the state-level committee was headed by the chief secretary.

Members of the two committees were secretaries and joint secretaries from the personnel, administrative reforms and training, pension and public grievances, and finance departments.

“The screening committee evaluated the proposals received from different districts in two sittings and placed them before the state level committee,” said a state government note.

The state-level committee scrutinized 259 proposals received from 35 districts and selected 89 employees for the district-level awards. Ninety-nine proposals were received from different departments and directorates for the state-level awards of which 10 were finally selected.

“A government becomes unsuccessful when people who come to offices for their work leave with bad experiences from their interactions with employees. I want such a government and state secretariat from where visitors leave with praise about employees,” said Sarma.

Keeping a check on corrupt practices, the CM also mentioned how the vigilance and anti-corruption departments have nabbed two employees on a daily basis for accepting bribes.

“Earlier there was no scope for recognition for non-gazetted employees, but now we have this opportunity. We are happy that the government decided to honour awardees on the death anniversary of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi,” said Basab Kalita, adviser, Sadou Asom Karmachari Parishad 9SAKP), the umbrella organization of state government employees.

“There will be good and bad employees in all sectors, but awards like this encourage those working sincerely. Now there will be competition among employees and it will improve productivity. There’s no complaint about the selection process, which has been very fair,” he added.