The first batch of Kerala Administrative Service (KAS) officer trainees, who joined the State Civil Service in December last year, are yet to get their pay.
The KAS was implemented to generate an efficient middle-level personnel for the State administration. Multiple reasons, including the government departments concerned moving at a snail’s pace to complete procedures and technical hiccups in the SPARK payroll software, have reportedly delayed the payment of salary to the trainees.
The KAS stream 1 candidates, comprising direct recruits, were asked to join service on December 20 last, non-gazetted government employees of stream 2 on December 21, and government gazetted employees of stream 3 on December 22.
However, they were all issued an appointment order dated December 23. This has caused a ‘service break’ for many trainees, throwing up more hurdles for them.
If that were not enough, the officer trainees are yet to get salary since they joined the KAS. Unlike the young graduate candidates in stream 1 of the KAS, those in stream 2 and 3 are older and burdened with responsibilities such as repayment of loans, insurance, and so on.
No salary for months is putting a significant strain on their finances. The trainees are apprehensive they are in for some more wait before they start getting paid. In fact, part salary for December, when stream 2 and 3 officers were in their previous posts was paid only in March.
Minister for Finance K.N. Balagopal told The Hindu that lack of funds or funds not being sanctioned had not come to his notice.
General Administration Additional Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan said technical issues in migrating employee details to SPARK had led to the delay. Some of it involved policy decision-making too.
Both the General Administration department and the Finance department were resolving the issues. The migration to SPARK was nearly complete, and the matter would be resolved in a week or two.
The current batch of the KAS has 105 officer trainees, 35 from each stream, who were selected after preliminary and main examinations, and interview..
