`No move to divest states of power to punish civil servants`

New Delhi: The government is not planning to divest power from the states to punish a civil service officers, Lok Sabha was told Wednesday.

"No," was the written reply of Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy on whether the government was planning to divest the state governments of their right to take action against the civil servants. The demand to take back power of suspension or transfer, among others, of an All India Service (AIS) officer--IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service (IFoS)-- had come up in the backdrop of controversial suspension of IAS officer Durga Sakthi Nagpal by the Uttar Pradesh government. Nagpal, a 2010 batch officer of UP cadre, was suspended by the state government ostensibly for ordering demolition of a wall of an under-construction mosque without following the due process. 28-year-old Nagpal, who has been reinstated, had taken on sand mining mafia active in Gautam Budh Nagar district of UP. "In the case of AIS officers posted in various cadres or states, appropriate redressal mechansims are embedded in AIS (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, to prevent undue harassment of officers by state government," said Narayanasamy. In reply to another question, the Minister said the government has not decided on any time frame for implementing performance-based incentive scheme for central government employees. The government has accpeted in principle the recommendation of the Sixth Central Pay Commission for introduction of a Performance Related Incentive Scheme (PRIS) in the form of pecuniary benefit over and above the regular salary, based on the targeted performance and performance parameters, out of the Non-Plan budgetary savings, for the central government employee. "No time frame has been fixed (for implementation of the scheme)," he said.