NEW DELHI: Imagine his surprise when a Delhi Police constable receives a direct request from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for details like his mobile and landline numbers, email id and residential address. The Modi Connect, which so far has had a sobering effect on senior babus, has seeped down to the lowest rung of bureaucracy and law enforcement, which have never been considered important enough to be taken seriously by the powers that be. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest attempt to directly connect with all the lower division clerks, assistants and section officers in the Union ministries and constables in Delhi Police and Central paramilitary forces has taken them by surprise. These officers play a crucial role as they form the lowest organisational unit in any ministry or government department which moves files while constable level personnel are at the frontlines of maintaining law and order. Since corruption is rampant at this level, there is also apprehension that their activities may be monitored personally by the PMO, which is keeping a keen eye on all government activity.
According to sources, babus in Central ministries received a communication from the PMO last week seeking their personal details. An official who has spent almost 30 years in a government department said it was for the first time the PMO sought the numbers and email IDs of assistants and clerks, entrusted with the most important job of noting and drafting the cases, brief for ministers, schemes and programmes of the government. “We never received such requests even from divisions head and wing head, which is the highest unit in the ministry, in our tenure. The PM’s initiative brought a moment of pride and at professional level it acted as a morale booster,” he added.
Meanwhile, the PMO is already plugged in with the babus through a weekly newsletter sent to their respective email ids while seeking the officials’ participation in governance and ensuring citizens’ needs and to further their welfare without any delay.
“We received an email earlier in the first week of August after submitting the details to the PMO. It provided us a brief on what Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to achieve through MyGov initiative to facilitate good governance for time-bound grievance redress and delivery of services to citizens,” an official pointed out.
Even for Delhi Police, the missive from the PMO came as a surprise. Constables, head constables and sub-inspectors were asked to provide details, including phone numbers, email account and residential addresses. Besides, PMO also sought details like municipal areas of each and every Delhi Police personnel, current posting and transfer-postings in the recent past. In the missive dated August 11, the PMO had fixed August 13 as the deadline to submit the information. After the letter was circulated to every unit of Delhi Police, the officials got down to decode the database collection drive.
An officer privy to these conversations opined that the PMO was in a mood to keep vigil on every police official in Delhi. Interestingly, many constables had to seek help from senior officials at various police stations to open their email accounts. The officer also added that a new circular was going to be issued wherein every Delhi Police official has to declare their assets and the details of each of their family members.
According to an estimate of Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), there are over 2,50,000 Group ‘B’ employees in the Central government, including gazetted and non-gazetted positions, and over 19 lakh Group ‘C’ employees which include head clerks, clerks, assistants, and stenographers. With the huge database, the PMO is ushering in a new phase of democratisation of digital governance, said an officer who now regularly receives emails.
Perhaps Modi is well aware of the importance of section officers who not only manage and coordinate most of the work in the ministry or department but also ensure that files are not held up at any stage. Assistants are known as the backbone of the ministerial work. They are required to have command over rules and regulations of the government to deal with a plethora of subjects on a daily basis, including working on briefs for the ministers concerned.