An Interesting ACR
Prasanna Dash
‘I will not tell the names of the
officers involved, but they are many, many years senior to me,’ said a senior
colleague. The point is not about those officers, per se, but about our curious
system of ACR, he continued.
Now it is named APAR (Annual Performance Appraisal Record). Previously, it was Anuual Confidential Record (ACR); and it was indeed 'CONFIDENTIAL' except when the entire ACR or part of it was 'Adverse' in which case it had to be communicated to the concerned officer, and s/he had the right to submit representation against the adverse entry.
The Recording Officer had written: He
is a thoroughly useless and undependable officer. His integrity is suspect, and
his performance is very poor. Grade – D.’
The ACR was communicated to the
concerned officer, and he submitted his representation, alleging bias and
personal prejudice against the RO. RO had not enclosed a separate sheet, as
required, to elaborate his doubts about the officer’s integrity. Hence, the
adverse entry regarding integrity had to be deleted.
The officer submitted enough data to establish
that his performance was not ‘Very Poor.’ Hence, that portion, including ‘Grade
– D’ was deleted.
The officer was still not done. He
submitted yet another representation arguing that there was no proof that he
was ‘thoroughly useless and undependable.’ So, that adverse entry, too, had to
be deleted.
All that remained of the original ACR
entry was: ‘He is a ………… officer………’.
‘Though no longer adverse, the ACR was
now grammatically incorrect,’ said the narrator with a chuckle.
***
Note:
- Author's profile may be seen at http://amazon.com/author/pkdash
- Books by this author are available on Amazon.in, Kindle eBook, Flipkart, and Notion Press, Chennai.
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