Snubbing govt directives, bureaucrats desert offices to attend ‘unnecessary’ meetings
Srinagar: Paying no heed to government’s directives, the bureaucrats in Kashmir continue to attend “unnecessary” meetings without remaining available in offices.
It can be recalled that in an official order issued in June, the government had asked the bureaucrats not to attend ‘unnecessary meetings.’
However, these orders have no takers as bureaucrats don’t remain available to redress grievances of people, besides putting a huge cost to the state exchequer.
“The government has been receiving complaints that some administrative secretaries as well as divisional commissioners call the heads of departments frequently to their headquarters for meetings,” a source told a local news gathering agency.
It said there were complaints that some officials were coming to their respective offices late in the morning and also leaving early “without seeking proper permission from the concerned authorities”.
“This order has been issued number of times, but the heads of departments are not paying any heed to government’s repeated directives,” added the source.
The source added the “non-availability of heads of departments has been affecting the functioning of the governance”.
“The non-availability of heads of departments at their respective headquarters is bound to cause disruption in the functioning of their offices and inconvenience to the general public,” one of the government orders reads.
It further reads, “Heads of departments should not be called either to the secretariat or to the divisional headquarters for meetings unless it is absolutely essential. Use of technology like video conferencing, telecom be maximized for meetings with the heads of departments”.
“The Advisors to the Governor are also requested to dispense with the participation of heads of departments during their public outreach programmes, Durbars as far as possible,” it adds.
“The government has also directed officers to install and operationalise bio-metric attendance system in those offices where such system has not been installed so far,” an official said. (KNS)
