It’s all work and no holiday for babus in Modi’s administration

PM’S PRINCIPAL SECY NRIPENDRA MISHRA AND ADDITIONAL PRINCIPAL SECY PK MISHRA HAVE NOT HAD A SUNDAY OFF SINCE THEY JOINED, SAYS A SOURCE

NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has installed an unlikely piece of furniture in one corner of his office in Delhi’s stately South Block: a divan.

It’s not an indulgence, or a vanity. The divan doubles up as a bed when Jaishankar has to catch some shuteye, because his schedule sometimes doesn’t allow him to go home: the country’s top foreign service officer has to be on tap for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and this means late nights at work, as well as Sundays.

Welcome to life in the Modi administration. Since the workaholic Prime Minister came to power a year ago, key bureaucrats and some ministers have started putting in extra hours and sacrificing their weekends in a bid to keep up with their “top boss”.

Modi, who sleeps only four to five hours a day, doesn’t go slow on weekends. “He keeps mostly political engagements on Sundays. Official meetings also take place, as and when necessary,” said a PMO source.

With Modi in the office, his core team, too, works during the entire weekend. “Officers of the rank of director and above in the PMO remain available to work on Sundays. The PM’s principal secretary Nripendra Mishra, additional principal secretary PK Mishra and public relations officer of the PMO Jagdish Thakkar have not had a single Sunday off since they joined the highest executive office,” added another source.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu comes to office on some Sundays and keeps official engagements even on non-working days. On some Sundays, the chairman and other members of the railway board are asked to attend office. The new culture of being always switched on is yet to hit all sections of the government.