BHUBANESWAR: To have grassroots knowledge on implementation of schemes and facilitate quicker decision-making, the state government has decided to make field visits of officials from the rank of assistant section officer (ASO)/section officer onwards mandatory.
In a letter to all additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, revenue divisional commissioners and district collectors, chief secretary Manoj Ahuja on Tuesday said decision-making in the government becomes result-oriented and faster, when officers and staff dealing with file work in offices are exposed to and become conversant with ground realities in the field.
“Practical difficulties faced by the field functionaries as well as citizens during implementation of schemes needs to be understood and remedied effectively,” he added.
Accordingly, to better align the policies and decisions with the ground realities, the chief secretary directed all departments to send officials starting from the rank of ASO/section officer on field visits in a rotation basis.
“This will be applicable to all those who, in the normal course do not undertake tours,” he added.
Ahuja further directed that during the visits, officials must observe closely and shadow a field worker at the grassroots level for a day and observe implementation of the schemes and programmes related to the department concerned.
For example, he said, officials of the Women and Child Development department should be directed to attach themselves for a full day to an anganwadi worker and observe and follow the work done in detail.
Similarly, officials of the Health and Family Welfare department should observe the services rendered by accredited social health activists (ASHAs) under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). He also advised that officials be encouraged to make a night halt in the place of visit.
The chief secretary further said that the purpose of this exercise was not to give directions or review the work of field functionaries but to observe and learn about the work of the field-level workers in a non-obtrusive manner as well as to know more about the impact on citizens and understand the problems, issues and also the good practices at the said level.
Ahuja further said that the officials, after returning from the field visits, must submit at least one suggestion/idea to the secretary of the department concerned.
“The secretaries will have to make presentations at the all-secretary meetings about the field visits of officials in their departments,” he added.