MHA modifies policy for compassionate appointments

A Welfare Officer is tasked with assisting the dependent family of the deceased employee in getting appointments on compassionate grounds

A “holistic assessment” of financial condition, a point-based merit scheme to assess applications and a Welfare Officer to help applicants navigate the process are among additions to a modified policy of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for compassionate appointment to the next of kin of its employees who die in harness or retire on medical grounds, leaving their families in penury.

The fresh guidelines are expected to bring more transparency and objectivity in the process of compassionate appointment in the Ministry, which will also benefit those belonging to paramilitary forces where personnel suffer casualties during operations, suicides and incidents of fratricides.

"The object of the compassionate appointment scheme is to grant appointment on compassionate grounds to a dependent family member of a government servant dying in harness or who retired on medical grounds, thereby leaving his family in penury and without any means of livelihood and relieve the family of the government servant concerned from financial destitution and help it get over the emergency," the new policy said.

Transparency and objectivity are the foremost aspects of the scheme for compassionate appointment, it said.

For this, various measures like chalking out the role of Welfare Officer, adopting a point-based merit scheme for assessing applications, indexing each application with a unique ID and putting out minutes of meetings of the three-member Screening Committee in public domain have been put in place.

The policy said the point-based merit scheme would bring in the necessary objectivity, homogeneity and transparency in the appointments on compassionate grounds.

“A holistic assessment of the financial condition of the family has to be made taking into consideration factors like presence of earning member(s), size of family, age of children and the financial needs of a family," the policy said.

The Welfare Officer is tasked with assisting the dependent family of the deceased employee in getting appointments on compassionate grounds. The applicant will be “advised in person” by the Welfare Officer about the requirements and formalities to be completed.

The Screening Committee will put up their recommendations before the competent authority for a final decision.

The suitability of a candidate is looked into by considering aspects like total income of family, the number of dependent minors, disabled and unmarried daughters, leftover service of the deceased employees among others. A longer left-over service of the deceased would be considered as having more impact on the family, the policy said.