The Legislation Management Committee of the National Assembly has failed to finalise the long-overdue Federal Civil Service Bill after the government tried to reverse the provisions already agreed upon.

Sunday’s meeting of the House committee that was supposed to endorse the bill was deferred till Monday as it failed to agree on the provisions relating to retirement age and whether or not civil servants should be allowed to teach in civil service preparatory classes.

The House of Representatives had endorsed a provision to increase the retirement age of civil servants to 60, up from the existing 58. This provision, however, will be implemented gradually. The retirement age will continue to be 58 until the fiscal year in which the bill is endorsed. It will then rise to 59 and 60, respectively, in the succeeding fiscal years.

The committee under the upper house in principle agreed to retain the provision. However, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration has pushed the committee to implement 59 years at the retirement age from the fiscal year in which the bill is endorsed.

“The government is trying to dictate the process. It wants to revise the already agreed upon provision,” said Jayanti Rai, a member of the committee from the CPN (Unified Socialist). The ministry also wants to bar the civil servants from teaching.

“Until now, talented under-secretaries and even section officers are teaching such classes. By barring them, retired secretaries and joint-secretaries want to have a monopoly over such instruction,” said Rai. “What is the problem if they teach without hampering their duty hours?”

Under pressure from bureaucrats, the committee also finds it hard to decide whether to allow a window for free competition to non-gazetted first class employees. The secretary at the ministry has been pushing to stop free competition saying that the lower-level staff should get an opportunity for promotion.

The committee, however, has agreed to reverse a crucial provision endorsed by the House of Representatives and impose a two-year cooling-off period before retired bureaucrats take up state appointments. Against what was endorsed by the lower house, the house committee has reached an agreement to keep 10 percent of joint-secretary posts open for competition. While 20 percent of the positions will be filled through inter-level competition, 70 percent will be fulfilled through promotion based on seniority and performance.

The House of Representatives passed the bill on June 29 and forwarded it to the upper house four days later.

It received 130 amendment proposals from 46 lawmakers on several provisions, including the controversial cooling-off clause. Following marathon meetings from Thursday, the committee settled all the issues unanimously.

“We will reach a conclusion on Monday. The committee will take a day more to finalise the report,” said Gopal Bhattarai, a UML member of the committee.

The upper house has a constitutional deadline of Wednesday to endorse the bill and dispatch it to the lower house.

The bill envisions that the provincial civil service commissions will appoint chief administrative officers in local units under the respective provinces. However, until the provinces start their own recruitments, the federal government will depute such officers in bulk, and the provincial governments will assign them to local units. This arrangement can continue for a maximum of 10 years. Officers can be transferred between provinces once during their service period.

The bill places provincial secretaries under the respective provincial government, thus meeting a longstanding demand of the provinces. However, for now, they will be deputed by the federal government. Principal secretaries overseeing the respective provincial bureaucracy will continue to be under the federal government.

The erstwhile Pushpa Kamal Dahal government had registered the bill in the lower house on March 4 last year. It was forwarded to the House committee on May 28 after theoretical discussions.