Focus on governance as Kejri does a Modi, makes babus work overtime
NEW DELHI: Shifting focus on governance from the past month’s internal strife in the party, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought to do a ‘Narendra Modi’ on his officers.
The chief minister has directed to hold review of various departments of Delhi government after office hours. Obviously, the decision has left a lot of officers fuming.
Soon after taking over as the Prime Minister, Modi too had asked ministers and officers to work overtime to implement his government’s agenda.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), too, after coming to power in Delhi had started conducting reviews of various departments to understand the work culture.
Kejriwal has, since last week, been taking presentations from the heads of various departments on details of revenue, staff strength and how their budget can be trimmed.
For the first two days of the presentation, the officials were asked to come in three shifts 10:30am to 11:30am, 11:30am to 12:30pm and 12:30pm to 1:30pm.
“On late Friday evening, an order was issued stating that from Monday, the presentations would be from 6pm to 9pm and every department will get one hour. Most officials report to work by 10am. They will now have to stay back for their presentation till 9pm, effectively spending 14 hours at work,” a senior government official said.
According to sources, government is looking at the possibility of cost cutting through such reviews, as many departments existed just on paper and didn’t have much work. The department heads have been giving presentations on a rotational basis and said that they had been investing a lot of time in making the presentations.
“Apart from the CM and his cabinet, officials of the revenue and finance department have to be present during the review session as the departments tell the CM about the revenue they have generated during a financial year and how they had utilized their budget,” the official added.
The Delhi government has about 30 departments and the reviews are likely to continue for another 10 days after which, the CM will take a decision as to which department is to be shut down and which needs trimming, something which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also done.