BHUBANESWAR: Working from home during the height of Covid-19 pandemic was the protocol. But what may sound bizarre, an Additional Secretary has been asked by his department authority to work from home due to space constraints in his office.
Additional Secretary in the Public Enterprises department Sailendra Dwibedi has been directed to work from home until further order.
The order issued by another Additional Secretary of the department on Friday sounds bizarre as it said that it is difficult to arrange space for so many officers.
“There is no sufficient space and work to accommodate so many officers. In view of this, Sailendra Dwibedi, Additional Secretary, is hereby directed to work from home, until further orders,” said the August 27 order.
To justify the need for taking such a step, the order further said, “There are five Additional Secretaries in the department while only four sections are available at present.”
What is puzzling is that eight class-I and above rank officers are posted in the department to supervise the work of eight officers - three assistant section officers (ASOs), three section officers (SOs) and two desk officers (DOs) - belonging to the Odisha State Secretariat (OSS) cadre.
Apart from Principal Secretary Vijay Arora, the department has two IAS officers and three OAS officers in the Additional Secretary rank and two under secretaries. Another retired IAS officer Pravat Kumar Lenka has been re-employed as consultant.
With no logic behind posting five Additional Secretaries in a department having four sections, it is quite apparent that the bureaucracy is top heavy and the support staff are less.
Even as the workload of the State government has increased manifold with creation of new departments like Mission Shakti, the staff strength of Odisha Secretariat has not been revised for the last four decades.
The last revision made in 1979 when common cadre for the Odisha Secretariat Service (OSS) was introduced.
Considered as the backbone of Secretariat administration, the OSS cadre employees do a host of works. Apart from dealing with establishment matters, they prepare the State budget, frame rules as per the State and Central Acts, interpret rules, prepare policy and ensure proper implementation of Central schemes.
“In the last 40 years, the number of districts have increased from 13 to 30, including the number of blocks and tehsils. Government departments have been increased to 42 and the State and the Centre are introducing new schemes every year thus increasing the workload,” said Dambarudhar Ghana, a member of the OSS Association.