C T Online Desk: The Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) has drafted a new employee transfer and appointment policy, which includes a rule that employees who have served in the same position for more than three years will generally be considered for transfer.
Even before completing three years in the same position, officials or employees can be transferred in the public interest, taking into account their performance.
The draft policy is awaiting approval from the Road Transport and Highways Division, people who are cognizant of the matter told the Daily Sun, adding that the policy aims to prevent the corrupt practices of transferring and ensure that qualified employees are placed in the correct positions.
It will help enhance the professional skills, experience and mobility of the employees and to ensure quality public service, he added.
Experts believe that proper implementation of the policy will help reduce prevailing irregularities and mismanagement in the corporation.
In the case of both husband and wife working in the BRTC, existing government rules and regulations will be followed.
Administrative action can be taken according to the rules if there is a delay in joining the transferred place.
If it is necessary to transfer employees from grade 11 to 20, the head of the BRTC depot or unit can appoint them from one branch to another at the same workplace, considering their performance.
This policy will be applicable to all grades of permanent and temporary staff appointed by the corporation. Government and military officers posted on deputation will not be covered by this policy.
BRTC Chairman Md Tajul Islam told the Daily Sun, “The transfer policy is being made to give responsibility to the right person in the right place. Profit and loss of BRTC bus or truck depot depends on the manager of that depot. Hence manager is a very important position. If a manager is not sincere, sanguine and integrated a depot cannot make profits.”
He said the draft policy will be approved soon.
A BRTC bus depot manager in Dhaka told the Daily Sun on condition of anonymity, “Managers allegedly give bribes to higher officials to stop their transfers and stay in one place. As a result, dedicated and efficient managers do not get a proper evaluation. If implemented we will benefit from this policy.”
Sometimes the same manager has served in the same depot for 10 to 12 years but this trend has been broken by the current chairman of BRTC. During this chairman’s tenure, BRTC evaluated officers and transferred good and efficient managers to better depots. This policy is being done to bring the transfer and posting under a rule, he added.
Md Hadiuzzaman, a communication expert and professor of civil engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, told the Daily Sun, “BRTC is a large company in the field of state transport. Their transfer and posting policies should have been in place earlier. However, it is a good initiative and I applaud them for this initiative.”
When a person continues to work in the same way for a long time in any organisation, that person gets associated with various types of mismanagement, irregularities and corruption. So there should be a policy of transferring someone after a certain period. If the rules are applied systematically, the results will definitely be obtained. As a result, there will be fewer irregularities and mismanagement in BRTC, he added.
Regarding the implementation of the policy, Prof Hadiuzzaman has addressed some challenges.
“There will be a six-member committee on transfers and postings. That committee shall transfer and appoint officers or employees on the basis of merit. However, the question can be raised about how honestly the committee can work because only members of BRTC and the ministry will be on the committee. The transfer and appointment process can be more transparent if an expert external member is kept in the committee,” he added.
