The government clerks and assistants will have to go under the scanner of various HR (human resource) benchmarks followed in the corporate world for increment and promotion from this fiscal.

Bihar Secretariat Services employees will no longer be given “confidential reports” on their annual performance. They would get performance appraisal report (PAR) instead. The general administration department issued a notification in this connection on Tuesday.

“The Bihar Secretariat Service members will have to do self-appraisal in the PAR before appraisee assesses their performance. The employees will have to provide brief description of their duty with mention of any special achievements during the period.

Achieving 40 per cent of the objectives will be considered “below average”. The 80 per cent plus achievers will get the “excellent” tag among the five grades of evaluation,” said a source quoting the notification.

The notification, which would be in effect from the 2011-12 financial year, is being termed as a bombshell for the employees, who often vanish from their chairs on one pretext or the other during the working hours.

The general administration department’s joint secretary, Ajay Kumar Choudhary, said the new system would be applicable right from the assistant to the joint-secretary-rank officials. The copies of the notification with the format (form) had been sent to the principal secretaries, secretaries, heads of departments, director-general of police, office of the accountant general, divisional commissioners and the chief minister secretariat, he added.

General secretary of the Bihar Secretariat Service Employees’ Association Anil Kumar Singh hailed the government’s decision to introduce the PAR in place of annual confidential reports. “The move is aimed at bringing transparency in the performance assessment system of the secretariat employees. But it will all depend on the honesty and integrity of the assessment and accepting officers,” he added.

According to the notification, the employees would have to submit their performance appraisal forms to their respective reporting officials by the end of every financial year. The reporting officials, in turn, would send them to the assessment officials by April 30.

After going through the PAR forms, the assessment officials would send them to the accepting officers with their remarks within 15 days. The process has to be completed by May.

The reporting officers would be the same as it was when annual confidential reports were prepared. For assistants, the section officers would be the reporting officers, junior in-charge additional secretaries/deputy secretaries/joint secretaries would be the assessment officers and senior in-charge deputy secretaries/joint secretaries and principal secretaries would be the accepting officers.

Similarly, for section officers, in-charge additional secretaries/deputy secretaries would be the reporting officers, senior in-charge deputy secretaries/joint secretaries, additional secretaries/special secretaries would be the assessment officials and secretaries/principal secretaries would be the accepting officers.