Challenges or Opportunities… - Ms. Padma Angmo

From the day we joined the service we have had mixed responses from officers in the service. The inputs have varied from being called the best service to being called the worst. But all were unanimous in admitting that the contribution to the service by officers has been lower than desirable, mainly because of individualistic pursuits of Officers that has hampered the emergence of ‘esprit-de-corp’ amongst us.

There are certain problems which needs to be looked into:

First and foremost are the glitches in promotion. The cadre review has not been done since 1988; whereas, it is required to be done every five years. This is a major reason for causing delays in promotion and creation of additional posts. It requires immediate attention.

Officers are facing problems regarding adequate accommodation. Our service being Delhi-centric, should have certain provisions for providing suitable accommodation to the Service Officers. A separate housing pool for the IIS Officers on the lines with IAAS or ICAS is required.

The designation accorded to us is not parallel with other Group’A’ service officers. As Ms Deepak Sandhu pointed out, it neither reflected our status nor assisted us in working. To the embarrasment of officers working in regional offices, the designations like Information Officer (IO) corresponds to the level of Section officers. A proposal for changing the designation has been submitted to the ministry and is under consideration.

Another area of great concern is regarding the future of IIS cadre posts in Prasar Bharati. The ‘Indian Express’ quoted the CEO of Prasar Bharti referring to the IIS as deadwood, which is really painful. IIS has highly qualified news persons as its members. They have been managing News Service Division (NSD) of AIR for the past 50 years and the News and Current affairs programme of DD, right from the time of its inception. The ideal way would be to consider these posts as in deputation and regularise the cadre with immediate effect. However a need to be original and innovative is definitely the demand of times and we should be upto it.

There were reports in various newspapers regarding the role of IIS in a changing world where privatisation and outsourcing are the buzzword. The ‘Statesman’ carried the report that the Finance Minister had mooted the idea of having a separate media cell for the finance ministry that raised questions about the role of IIS in the changed scenario. The reactions among the service personnel were varied. Whereas there was a section that believed that any idea of sidelining the IIS was not possible and dismissed it as just a hearsay, there were others who believe that it is a wakeup call for us to let go of complacency and make ourselves indispensable. According to Ms Neelam Kapoor (DPR, Finance), the Finance Minister wants to make India an investment destination, and to this purpose has demanded a better-equipped team with the required expertise to guide and manage multi-media campaigns. She feels that it is an opportunity for further enhancement of our roles, if we could analyse trends, and develop a cutting edge.

A major reason for the lack of collective strength according to some, lies in the individualistic pattern of our service. Here we have many individual success stories but not many service successes. The need for the Service personnel is to come together to strengthen the Service, rather than crying over the spilt milk. There is a compelling need for the IIS officers to set goals, identify the predicaments facing our service, and find out means to address them before they assume gigantic proportions.We have to upgrade ourselves , become technology savvy and play a multifunctional role, to meet the dynamics of ever expanding demands and responsibility. The ‘Challenges’ may very well turn out to be ‘Opportunities’.