Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 30: An accommodation chaos has gripped the Civil Secretariat, Srinagar during the past more than one month with numerous officers mainly of the rank of Additional Secretaries and Under Secretaries clamoring for the proper place to smoothly perform their duties. The prevailing situation under which several officers are compelled to share rooms clearly indicates that there is no focus on rationalization of transfers, which is otherwise one of the important subjects of the Secretariat Induction Manual.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that during the past two months the Government has ordered transfers of the officers without any serious attention towards the rationalization aspect due to which no balance could be struck between the officers inducted in the Civil Secretariat and shifted from the seat of the governance resulting into accommodation chaos.
The deployment of large number of KAS Probationers in the different departments further increased the strength of the officers posted in the Civil Secretariat and compounded the situation vis-à-vis shortage of accommodation, sources said.
They disclosed that at present more than 20 officers of the rank of Additional Secretary and Under Secretary have been performing their duties without proper office/room. “They have been compelled to share rooms with each other despite the fact that a proper working atmosphere and space is required for proper working of any department or its wing”, sources regretted.
“Some officers, who were posted in other departments, are holding the same room by just removing the department board as they have not been provided accommodation for the new postings”, sources said while disclosing that an officer, who was recently transferred from a department and posted in a Corporation, preferred to remove the board outside his room fearing that leaving this room would deprive him of the proper accommodation.
Though some of these officers approached the Estates Department for making allotment of accommodation but they were told that Estates makes allotment of rooms to the departments and not to the individual officers, sources said.
In response to a question, they said, “the accommodation chaos prevailing during the past around two months is mainly because of the fact that rationalization of transfers was not given due attention”, adding “the scenario vis-à-vis officers’ deployment can be gauged from the fact that some departments have three to four Additional Secretaries or Deputy Secretaries while as in several others there is only one Additional Secretary or Deputy Secretary”.
Pointing towards the Secretariat Induction Manual, which is available even on the website of the General Administration Department, sources said, “it has been stated that the Induction Manual would help in rationalization of transfers of officers from Secretariat to field and vice-versa but unfortunately this aspect has not received the due attention of the authorities concerned till date”.
“It seems that Government has forgotten the Induction Manual after posting it on the website of the General Administration Department”, sources regretted.
“Some Ministers are also responsible for the accommodation chaos in the Civil Secretariat as the officers posted on special duty, PROs and Special Assistants to them have been provided with separate rooms on the directions of the Ministers”, sources said.
Responding to another question, they said, “the accommodation problem in Civil Secretariat Srinagar would be over within next few months as two more floors are coming up”.
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