Himachal officers to be evaluated with numerical grading with negative marking

Shimla: The performance of officers in Himachal Pradesh, including those in the Indian Administrative Service, will now be evaluated with numerical grading ranging from one to 10 with a provision of negative marking, dumping traditional descriptive categories like “outstanding” or “average”.

Officials said Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu has done a significant overhaul of the Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) system for Class I and II officers.

The reforms aim to enhance accountability and transparency by linking officer evaluation directly to their work output.

An official said from now on, all officers, including Administrative Secretaries and Deputy Commissioners, would be evaluated solely on their performance for their APARs.

Under the new system, performance appraisals would be directly linked to the work outputs of all officers. The traditional descriptive categories such as “outstanding”, “very good”, “good” and “average” would be replaced with a numerical grading scale.

The officers would be assessed based on three key indicators: the accomplishment of their annual work plan, other work-related attributes and personal and functional attributes.

The reforms also introduce negative marking, with officers potentially losing two points from their overall grade, on a scale of 1-10, for non-compliance with government orders or advisories.

A statement quoting the Chief Minister highlighted the introduction of transparency as a key feature, noting that officers would receive their finalised evaluations which would foster professional development and encourage improvement in their performance.

The APAR process would now be entirely online, streamlining operations and enforcing a December 31 deadline for submissions.

He said these changes were designed to ensure a fair and objective evaluation process, particularly for field-level officers, whose performance would be closely tied to meeting quantitative targets.

He said the higher management officers would continue to be assessed on qualitative aspects and personal attributes.

Chief Minister Sukhu said these reforms were a crucial step toward strengthening governance and would further enhance the accountability within the state administration.