New Delhi, Jan. 7: The Centre has decided to tap retired officials below 65 years of age for conducting departmental inquiries in a bid to reduce the burden on serving officers and speed up pending corruption cases.

"It has now been decided that panels of retired officers from the ministries or departments under the Government of India and public sector undertakings would be created and maintained by the respective cadre controlling authorities for conducting departmental inquiries against the delinquent officials," an order issued today by the department of personnel and training said.

Only officials above the rank of deputy secretary and equivalent positions in PSUs would be eligible for empanelment as inquiry officers.

Each officer would have a tenure of three years. An officer can be allotted a maximum of 20 cases in a year, with not more than four at a time.

He or she should be in sound health and "should not be an accused officer in any pending inquiry and should be of impeccable integrity", the DoPT said.

A fairly high honorarium is being offered to make this an attractive proposition, with special emphasis on time-bound completion of the probe.

A deputy secretary or director-level officer would get Rs 60,000 for completing the inquiry in 45 days, Rs 40,000 for wrapping it up within 90 days, and Rs 30,000 if more time is taken. For a joint secretary and above, the honorarium would range from Rs 40,000 to Rs 75,000 per case.

There would be an additional transport allowance of Rs 40,000 per case.

However, the full honorarium would only be paid if the report is accepted by the disciplinary authority of the ministry, department or office concerned. In other cases, the allowances would be paid on a pro rata basis.

Niti Aayog CEO

Amitabh Kant, the secretary in the department of industrial policy and promotion who had been given additional charge as the CEO of the Niti Aayog, would be the full-time chief of the policy-making body.

As per a fresh order issued by the appointments committee of the cabinet, Kant will be the Niti Aayog CEO after retiring from the DIPP in the end of February.

Kant assumed charge of the Aayog on January 1 after former chief Sindhushree Khullar's retirement.

A Kerala cadre officer of the 1980 batch, Kant was at the forefront of the Make in India campaign, a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier, he was associated with the creation of the Incredible India and God's Own Country campaigns to promote India and Kerala as tourism destinations respectively.