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| Delhi Govt servants have to clock in on time, stay back late and even give up holidays | | Modi effect: | | Agencies
NEW DELHI, June 23: There aren't too many people taking long, leisurely lunches at Delhi Gymkhana Club these days. And fewer out on the greens at Delhi Golf Club, even allowing for the blistering summer heat.
Life for government servants has become a little harder under the NarendraModi government- they're expected to clock in on time, stay late when needed and even give up holidays, besides cutting out the little pleasures in life such as lunches at Delhi Gymkhana and Golf Club.
Employees at a defence ministry office in Delhi were last week asked to sign up to a notice pledging that they would be in by 9am or face disciplinary action. One habitual latecomer has now taken to leaving home half an hour earlier as result.
RakeshTomar, a bus operator who ferries civil servants to the Central Secretariat government office complex, has been asked by the customers to advance bus timings.
Habits are changing. "Earlier, I used to wait at stops. Now they are already waiting for me," he said.
At 9am, outside the bhavans that house the main government departments, there's a stream of employees running in to beat the clock. Delays can mean getting a piece of the boss' mind. At the housing ministry, employees have to report to their superior if they are late by more than 15 minutes. Biometric scanners track attendance and regular latecomers will get a notice after six months.
Many top bureaucrats who used to be habitudes of India Habitat Centre, India International Centre, Delhi Golf Club and Delhi Gymkhana are no longer in regular attendance. There also seems to be an unwritten diktat in force that bureaucrats should not be seen playing golf. The Delhi Golf Club has about 200 bureaucrats as members. Many would put in a quick morning round and sometimes, weather permitting, even in the afternoon during the working week. It is said that a list of officers who played golf regularly was ordered to be compiled.
"They got the message," said a senior bureaucrat. Officials have also been asked to remove all golfing equipment from their offices. Education minister SmritiIrani recently pulled up a bureaucrat at an office meeting when she saw him fiddling with his cellphone while discussions were going on.
Many senior officers are working longer hours, especially in the PMO, who have been in by 8am and are leaving at midnight." There is no time for oneself and there is so much work to complete," one PMO official said.
Another official was found complaining that his wife had to manage a water supply crisis at home on her own as he needed to get to the office. Another said he had to cancel a summer vacation in Goa with his wife and kids, although he seemed to welcome this. "They hardly get to see me nowadays. I am working on weekends, but this culture is good," the official said.
While Modi's predecessor also put in long hours and officials in key ministries never really switch off completely under any dispensation, it's perhaps for the first time that civil servants across all government departments are being pushed to work harder and longer. Meanwhile, at the finance ministry, officials work long hours in any case in the weeks before the budget, which is expected to be announced in July. |
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