Computerisation of Personnel Information System (CPIS)
- A Tool for Transparency and Control by Manipur Government
- Part 2 -

Oinam Nabakishore Singh *

Background of the Computerization o Personnel Information System in Manipur

In the late nineties and early years of 21st Century, the State Government of Manipur faced a serious problem of fiscal crisis. The State didn't have enough money in its coffer to meet the monthly payment of salary to its employees. There was delays of up to three months in payment of salaries and pensions to its employees.

The State largely depended upon the grants and transfers from the Government of India for its finance, as its internal resource was meager. An analysis of the budget of the State reveals that a major portion of the fund in the budget is earmarked for payment of salaries and pensions. The implementation of the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission of the Central Government by the State in late nineties with some modifications increased the payroll expenses dramatically.

Since private investment in industries and business was small, the government employment remained the major source of employment for the educated youths in the State. There has been pressure upon the elected executives and civil servants for recruitment of the youths in the State Government.

Over a period of time there have been recruitments by several departments in various formats by bypassing the norms and guidelines. Many employees appointed as substitutes or on contract basis or on ad-hoc basis continued indefinitely because of interests of those involved. This resulted in increase in the number of employees, and it was difficult to know the exact number of employees.

In response to such manipulations by the line agencies, the Personnel Department of the State banned all fresh recruitment of new employees from time to time. Another practice of recruitment was called "fake employment", where the employee is offered employment by an executive without authority and without having a sanctioned post.

All such employees were able to get their salaries on the strength of documents, whose authenticity is doubtful. The database of the employees in an agency/ department keeps changing due to addition or deletion of employees as they are transferred or retired or on appointment of new employees.

The employees don't have a specific employee number; they are recognized by their name and associated designation. The treasury, which is responsible for payment of salaries and pensions, and responsible for control over expenditure and budget didn't have any reliable tool to identify the fake appointees.

The State's consolidated and centralized database of its employees was not reliable as the accuracy of data was in doubt. There were more than 105 departments/organizations, which were appointing employees and maintaining the records of employees.

The Government of India required the State Government to legislate an act called. Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, for better state financial management. This Act was passed by the State Legislature. It also required the State Government to disclose the number of its employees during the presentation of budget to the State Legislature.

Since the number of employees of the State was inaccurate, it had to look for a tool which will maintain an accurate reliable database. It is in the context of the above difficulty that the State Government of Manipur decided to make use of information technology to computerize the data of all its employees and make use of it for various purposes.

Objective of CPIS in Manipur

• Check appointments beyond sanctioned posts;
• Weed out fraudulent/irregular appointments;
• Control revenue expenditure on salaries;
• Achieve good governance and increase efficiency through deployment of staff in offices/institutions located in the remote and hill areas as per sanctioned posts;
• Streamlining of transfer and posting of staff.

1. Creation of database of employees, sanctioned posts, scales of pay,emoluments drawn.
2. Develop a system to facilitate data updating on promotion, transfer and retirement/expiry of employees.
3. Provide details of the staffing pattern of different offices/institutions of all Departments to facilitate decisions on deployments and transfers.
4. Check and weed out spurious/bogus/fake appointments.
5. Facilitate accurate projection of liabilities on salary/allowances/pension for budgetary exercise.

1. Database of all sanctioned posts of different categories in all offices.
2. Database of all regular Government employees posted against sanctioned posts in each office.
3. Generation of a unique Employee Identification Number (EIN) for each employee irrespective of his/her place of posting.
4. Regulation of payment of salaries to ElN Holding employees against sanctioned posts.
5. Updating of employees' details through promotion, transfer and posting, retirement, new recruitment against sanctioned posts.

1. Category-wise number of sanctioned posts.
2. Category-wise number of employees.
3. Number of retiring employees on attaining the age of superannuation on monthly/ yearly basis.
4. Number of new recruitments made after cut-off date.
5. Full particulars of an employee e.g. name of the employee, father's name, designation, date of birth, pay scale, grade, EIN (Employee Identification Number), previous as well as present place of posting.
6. Number of employees transferred and posted in excess of the number of sanctioned posts in an office.
7. Number of vacant posts.