In NIC, scientists wait for promotion, financial perks

Incentives stuck for the past three years; scientists leave in hordes for private sector. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 29, 2012, 22:32:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Babus have scuttled financial and promotion avenues of scientists in the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The centre has been mandated to implement India’s ambitious e-governance programme and protect government’s key websites.

The result: Exodus of senior information technology scientists to the private sector, which is offering them both better money as well as career. “We stayed with the government, thinking of better career and innovation,” said a senior scientist with NIC.

But that has not happened for over three years as the Cabinet Secretariat has apparently not given them a go-ahead to conduct departmental promotion committee meetings at senior level posts.

“As promotions are stuck at the senior level, its implications are obvious at lower levels also,” an official said. “No promotions are taking place,” the official added.

A minimum of 50 scientists are waiting to be promoted to the joint secretary-level post since 2009. There are scientists who have been stuck at the same level for more than six to seven years even though the time scale under which they were appointed assured them a promotion every five years.

“But nobody is listening to us despite several representations,” a senior government official said, adding it was leading to demoralisation of the scientific community.

Moreover, these scientists are not just being denied promotion, but even financial benefits that they were legible for. For many, that’s a double whammy.

As per the time scale, the scientists of the NIC should have by now got the salary of the posts they were eligible for appointment. It would have meant a salary hike of up to 10-15 per cent and higher retirement benefits but the higher bureaucracy in NIC appears to have turned a deaf ear towards them.

Most scientists believe that the reason for the lackadaisical attitude of the government is the so-called ‘rivalry’ between technocrats and bureaucrats led by Indian Administrative Service (IAS). NIC is headed by a technocrat while its parent ministry, Information and Technology, by an IAS officer.

The scientists want that the government should address their issues to retain and promote scientific temper in the government.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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