HoDs too slack in furnishing progress reports to Div Com, DCs
Apathy deprives people of opportunity to air grievances
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 7: Majority of the Administrative Secretaries in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have failed to ensure strict compliance to the repeated verbal and written instructions regarding mandatory field visits on weekly basis to review the progress on developmental works. Even Heads of the Departments (HoDs) are adopting dilly-dallying approach in furnishing progress reports of projects being inspected by them to the Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that from time to time thrust was laid on mandatory field visits by the Administrative Secretaries of the departments so as to take timely note of the impediments in the execution of developmental works. Though some sort of compliance was shown to these instructions yet the exercise never continued uninterruptedly.
Following the imposition of Governor’s Rule in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir this aspect once again received the required attention and on July 8, 2018, the then Governor of erstwhile State Satya Pal Malik while chairing a meeting disclosed that Administrative Secretaries, Heads of the Departments (HoDs) and Chief Engineers would be asked to visit all the districts to facilitate developmental works.
“The Administrative Secretaries, HoDs and other officers are required to conduct frequent tours to facilitate removal of hurdles in the developmental works and ensure their timely execution”, the then Governor had specifically mentioned in the meeting.
Thereafter, the necessity of conducting field visits by the Administrative Secretaries was discussed in numerous meetings of the Committee of Secretaries chaired by the Chief Secretary and finally written instructions in this regard were issued by the General Administration Department.
“The Governor has been pleased to direct that all the Administrative Secretaries shall undertake field visits on weekly basis to review the important State and Centrally Sponsored Schemes, developmental works and other related matters of their departments and submit a status report to the Chief Secretary inter-alia highlighting the issues which require intervention for timely completion of the projects”, read Circular No.26-GAD dated May 8, 2019.
On May 27, the Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam while chairing Committee of Secretaries meeting urged the Administrative Secretaries to undertake tours of the districts to review the status of projects/schemes being implemented by their respective departments and also to listen the grievances of the people.
“Initially, almost all the Administrative Secretaries started conducting field visits on weekly basis but with the passage of time they lost interest in this exercise and during the past several months field visits have been conducted by only few of them albeit not on weekly basis”, official sources told EXCELSIOR, adding “most of the Administrative Secretaries are preferring to hold meetings in the Civil Secretariat to review the projects in the districts by calling Heads of the Departments instead of paying personal visits which otherwise are imperative to identify the exact reasons behind slow pace of work and to know about the concerns of the people”.
Even by calling Heads of the Departments to the Civil Secretariat these Administrative Secretaries are violating the Government directives, which read: “HoDs should not be called to the meetings in the Civil Secretariat frequently and instead other means like video-conferencing be utilized to seek their presence to economize time and for improved service delivery”.
“What to talk of Administrative Secretaries even Heads of the Departments are avoiding to pay field visits despite the fact that explicit directions in this regard were issued by none else than the Chief Secretary while chairing meetings of Committee of Secretaries”, sources said while disclosing that objective behind directing HoDs to pay field visits was to ascertain status of important projects and provide feedback to the concerned Administrative Departments with the copies to the Divisional Commissioners and District Development Commissioners concerned so as to facilitate them to initiate corrective measures in a time bound manner.
Sources stressed, “instead of repeatedly issuing verbal as well as written instructions to the Administrative Secretaries and Heads of the Departments after regular intervals the Government must make them accountable for strict compliance in a time bound manner by initiating every possible step”.
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