Officials holding additional charge is not a rare phenomenon, at least in Jammu and Kashmir. Reports of Financial Advisors (FA) holding multiple charges confirm it. These additional charges negatively affect the functioning of the administration.
In order to fight the additional charge syndrome, the government announced a special mechanism back in 2015 to ease out pressure from the officers. However, the government has continued its practice to allott multiple departments to the financial advisors. Most of the financial advisors are holding multiple charges in government corporations according to the details.
An official working in one of the corporations said that since the financial adviser also holds charge of another corporation, he has to share his working time among both the corporations and as a result, the work gets negatively affected in both the corporations.
One of the chief accounts officers said that he is holding charge of three departments simultaneously. He complained that they have been given multiple charges and then head of departments expect them to be available in all these departments which is not possible. Moreover, holding charge of multiple departments causes them stress.
On February 2, the Finance Department allotted additional charge to seven officers.
This order states that “Irfan Majid, Incharge CAO District Fund Office Kishtwar will hold the charge of post of Chief Pay and Accounts Officer JKPDC Kishtwar and Chief Pay and Accounts Officer JPDCL Kishtwar in addition to his own duties till Jatinder Singh, Chief Pay and Accounts Officer returns from leave, while Abdul Salam Kumar, Incharge CAO General Manager (Accounts) Power Development Corporation Srinagar will hold the charge of the post of Chief Accounts Office Srinagar Development Authority in addition to his own duties till further orders and Vikas Atri, Incharge CAO Chief Pay and Accounts Officer, Baglihar Hydro Electric Project Chanderkote will hold the charge of the post of Treasury Officer, District Treasury Ramban and Chief Accounts Officer, District Fund Office Ramban in addition to his own duties will Jagmohan, CAO returns from leave”.
Order further states that “Muzaffer Ahmad Rather, AO, Municipal Council Anantnag will hold the charge of the post of Additional Treasury Officer, District Treasury Kulgam in addition to his own duties till Feroz Ahmad Mir, District Treasury Officer Kulgam returns from leave, while Avinash Accounts Officer Chief Electoral Office J&K will hold the charge of the post of Accounts Officer, State Election Commissioner UT of J&K in addition to his own duties till further orders, Rohini Angral, AO Northern Zonal Accountancy Training Institute Jammu will hold the charge of the post of Accounts Officer, District Fund Office Jammu in addition to her own duties till further orders and Mohammad Rafiq Ittoo, Incharge AO in the office of Deputy Commissioner (DC) Anantnag will hold the charge of the post of Treasury Officer in addition to his own duties till further orders”.
A senior official of the Finance Department said that the department is going through an acute shortage of manpower at various levels. He said that promotions of officers are also stuck for the last 18 months.