No officer in TN to bag CM's "Best Practices Award"

The Tamil Nadu government is desperately searching for the ideal officer in the state bureaucracy, worthy of receiving the chief minister's 'Best Practices Award'. The screening panel, constituted for choosing the right candidate, rejected the only name that was shortlisted by the selection committee. Though the hunt for the best candidate continues, officials have quietly decided to scrap the award, pleading helplessness in shortlisting the most deserving candidate.

The personnel administrative reforms department, whose representative is a key member of the selection committee, found no deserving candidate and suggested scrapping of the award. Officials have already written to the higher-ups that the award should be scrapped. Officials have also surrendered the grant of 14 lakh set aside for the award.

A nomination form released by the state government in its order lists three awards under three categories. They include,

·        an individual government officer

·        a group of government employees

·        a state-owned organisation

The committee received several applications and even nominated one officer for the award. But the nominee was rejected by the selection committee. The official declined to name the officer who was shortlisted. The selection committee had failed to select a group nominee or an organisation.

 Earlier this year, some of the officers, who applied for the award, presented their case before the selection committee at the Anna Institute of Management. The criteria for the officer or a group or a department to bag the award include implementation of innovative schemes and projects, bringing perceptible systemic changes to projects, making public systems efficient, effective and ethical, extraordinary performance during disaster situations, like floods, earthquakes and major accidents, setting high standards of service and improvement in delivery time of services. Other criteria included transparency and participation of the public and display of good leadership and team work by the nominee.

The state government constituted the award with an annual grant of 14 lakh in 2011. A government order was subsequently issued. The Anna Institute of Management and Director-General Training had evolved detailed draft guidelines for selection procedure, which was approved by the state government on April 16. The last date for receiving nominations was April 30, 2012, while the short-listing by the screening committee should have been completed by June 15 and the selection of the candidate by July 15. The award was supposed to be given on August 15, 2012 during Independence Day celebrations by the chief minister.