On March 28, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration announced the completion of civil servants’ adjustment process in all three tiers of the government—federal, provincial and local.

A month since the announcement, thousands of civil servants in health and other sectors are complaining against the adjustment, making governance more complicated, contrary to the objective. The civil servants’ adjustment process was started to make governance effective in the federal set-up.

Officials say the ministry is currently going through the complaints registered by more than 10,000 civil servants. “The adjustment process has become a challenging affair. Nonetheless, thousands of civil servants have already reported to their designated offices,” Kedar Paneru, joint secretary at the ministry, told the Post.

According to the latest organisation and management survey, all three layers of government need an additional 50,000 civil servants. The current strength of civil servants stands at 90,000.

After hundreds of government employees failed to report to their designated offices, the ministry had decided to set up a dedicated desk to register complaints from the government employees. The deadline ended last Thursday.

One senior official at the ministry told the Post that over 10,000 civil servants who opted for adjustment have registered their complaints at the ministry, expressing dissatisfaction on several issues. Some have said they are not interested to work in local or provincial levels, while others have listed family matters and health issues, the official said on the condition of anonymity. “There are some civil servants who feel their career will hit a roadblock if they are posted to local and provincial offices,” he said.

The ministry is now verifying the grievances to resolve the issues by setting up 11 thematic committees.

On Wednesday, the ministry issued a public notice to provide details of the number of vacant posts in all local bodies.

“Several local bodies have complained that due to a lack of adequate government employees, service delivery has been hit hard even after the completion of the civil servants’ adjustment,” the notice reads. “Hereby, the ministry requests all the local units to provide the number of vacant posts to the ministry after getting it authenticated jointly by the chairs, deputy chairs and chief executive of rural municipalities.”

Last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs also issued a public notice to those civil servants who were yet to report to the designated offices after their readjustment.

Under the Home Ministry, a total of 565 civil servants were adjusted in various district administration offices, prison offices and area administration offices. But many of them did not go to their work stations, which prompted the ministry to issue the notice.

“It’s not that only the officials under the Home Ministry have not reached their designated offices. We have received complaints from some districts that officials under other ministries also have not reported to work. If someone fails to reach the duty station, we will take action,” Kedar Sharma, a joint secretary at the Home Ministry, told the Post.

On March 28, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration said that deputation of 137,614 civil servants has been approved under the employee adjustment process, while 97,588 civil servants had been integrated.

According to the ministry, out of the 48,409 deputations approved in the federal government, 39,960 civil servants were integrated. Of the 22,297 deputations approved in all seven provinces, 13,821 civil servants were integrated, and out of 66,908 deputations approved in 753 local levels, 43,807 civil servants were integrated.

Officials said they were looking into the matter and working to resolve the problem soon.

“Service delivery has certainly been hit, development works have been slow and budget implementation sluggish in areas where civil servants have not reached despite readjustment,” said Paneru. “We are trying to remove the bottlenecks.”