Tripura cabinet approves hiring retired civil servants to complete pending departmental proceedings

Tripura Council of Ministers on Tuesday gave its approval to engage retired civil servants and judicial officers to expedite the process of departmental proceedings piled up for many years.

"The decision has been taken to decrease pendency of cases," Tripura cabinet spokesperson and information and cultural affairs minister Sushanta Chowdhury said.

Briefing the media after the state cabinet meeting at the secretariat, Chowdhury said, "The state cabinet has given its approval to appoint retired IAS, Tripura Civil Service and Tripura Judicial Service officers for timely completion of departmental inquiries pending for several years. The retired officers will be entitled to a one time honorarium of Rs 15,000 for IAS officers and Rs 10,000 for state officers if they submit the report within the span of three months."

"The financial benefits would be awarded case wise," he further clarified.

According to the Minister, the department of administrative reforms has taken the decision and the appointments of retired officers shall be made in accordance with the recommendations made by a committee chaired by the Law Secretary.

"Principal Secretary Administrative Reforms and Additional Secretary of the department shall also be the part of the committee", the minister added.

To a question regarding the number of cases, he said, "The total number of pending departmental proceedings would be a few hundreds."

Apart from that, the Minister has spoken about the state government's preparedness about the Omicron, Chowdhury said.

Principal Secretary Tripura Health and Family welfare department had informed the state cabinet that the COVID-19 graph had been declining and there were no cases of Omicron detected in the state so far. "We are still safe and there is not a single case of Omicron reported in the state," said Chowdhury.

Meanwhile, the Tripura cabinet has also approved the proposals of allotting two land plots with areas of 25 acres and 49.21 acres to Tripura Medical College and Ministry of Home Affairs for expansion of hospital and commencement of construction for Forensic University Campus respectively.

(ANI)