Snag in Administration

Democracy cares much for the rights of the people and also the service conditions of Government employees. That is why the administration has to keep regular watch on what are the requirements that would ensure smooth and effective running of the administrative system. Each Administrative Department is headed by Administrative Secretary and there is elaborate sub-structure for carrying on routine work. The Secretary of a Department occupies pivotal position and no decision regarding any matter pertaining to the department can be taken without the consent of the Secretary who is mandated to obtain the green signal from the Minister concerned. The Secretary is responsible for implementation of Government policy and projects and he is also required to monitor the progress. This being the crucial status of an Administrative Secretary, imagine what will be the condition of the department and how handicapped will the department become in delivering goods if the post of the Secretary remains unfilled for months at end or if it is given in temporary charge of another Secretary.
Surprisingly, some of the key departments of the State are without Secretary or placed in charge of another Secretary as his additional charge. This is a big administrative lacuna with detrimental consequences. It creates an air of uncertainty and slows down the progress of development. At present, there is no Administrative Secretary of Revenue, Tourism, Disaster Management, Information and Floriculture Departments.
When the Government found that this was a recurring problem and needed some long term solution, the Cabinet decided to constitute a Cabinet Committee on transfers that would take care of laying down rules and procedures of transfer of senior bureaucrats and also other senior functionaries. Though the Cabinet has approved constitution of the Committee yet the Committee has not been constituted in practice leave aside framing of rules and procedures. Thus the phenomenon of some key departments remaining without Secretaries continues and with that continues the inertia and lack of sense of responsibility. The remedy of this malaise is that the concerned Committee is constituted without loss of time and first foremost thing for the Committee to do is to examine the case of filling the vacant posts of Secretaries of the departments concerned. This will bring back efficiency and regularity on the functioning of the departments that have become victims of inertia.

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