Kathmandu, December 18

The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration today assured civil servants that their grievances with respect to the Employee Adjustment Ordinance would be heard and redressed accordingly.

Civil servants had taken serious objection to alleged lack of clarity, flaws and ambiguity in the ordinance recently authenticated by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari upon its approval by the Council of Ministers.

A press release issued by the MoFAGA today stated, “Some employees have pointed out its flaws. Therefore, the government is committed to correcting the flaws or errors, if any, for its implementation.”

The ordinance has already come into force for the adjustment of employees as part of implementation of the federal set-up in accordance with the constitution. The MoFAGA claimed that the ordinance had the objective of making the employment adjustment process transparent and objective.

“A steering and coordination committee led by Minister of Federal Affairs and General Administration Lalbabu Pandit has been formed to carry out the monitoring of adjustment process and maintain inter-agency coordination. Similarly, a committee under the coordination of Chief Secretary Lokdarshan Regmi is also facilitating the adjustment process,” said an official at the MoFAGA.

Employee adjustment grievance management committee headed by Joint Secretary Rup Narayan Bhattarai has been formed to receive, hear and redress the grievances of employees, who are set to be adjusted in all three levels of the government under the ordinance.

The committee includes representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, and MoFAGA as members.

The MoFAGA said the employees dissatisfied with any provision of the ordinance were encouraged to file their grievances for timely redress. Legal experts and former bureaucrats have said that the civil servants adjustment ordinance’s provision that mandates civil servants either to report to the deployed office or be ready to quit the job is  too harsh and it will do more harm to the country’s administration than serve the purpose.

The government brought the ordinance in the face of the growing criticism by the provincial governments that lack of civil servants had seriously impaired their service delivery, including the work of development projects.