A very important news related to salary has come to light for some central government officials. Under the Non-Functional Upgradation (NFU) system, eligible officers can get the financial benefit of higher pay level even without regular promotion.
That is, the post of the employee and his responsibilities may remain the same, but after fulfilling the prescribed conditions, his salary will be increased as per the higher level.
After all, what is this NFU system?
The full name of NFU is 'Non-Functional Upgradation'. This system is mainly implemented for eligible officers of organized Group 'A' services of the Central Government. Its main objective is to maintain financial parity in a situation when an equivalent officer of one batch gets promotion to a higher level, but the other officer does not get immediate opportunity for promotion due to administrative reasons.
For example, if an officer of a batch gets a pay level commensurate with the higher post and another officer in similar circumstances is deprived of regular promotion, he may be eligible for NFU under the rules. However, this benefit is not available automatically, rather it is very important to fulfill the prescribed eligibility and departmental procedures.
Salary will increase even without promotion
The most important thing about the NFU system is that in this the employee gets financial upgradation, while his actual post does not change.
This means that the pay level of the officer and the associated salary benefits increase, but the designation, responsibilities and administrative powers of the officer remain the same as the previous post. Therefore, it would not be right to consider it as a regular promotion, because it is basically a special arrangement to give only salary related benefits.
On what conditions is this big benefit available?
To avail the benefit of NFU, officers have to fulfill several important conditions under the relevant rules. These include completing the prescribed length of service in the current grade and meeting the service record or performance standards required for promotion.
The eligibility of the officer is decided on the basis of the relevant service rules and departmental evaluation process.