Will Pant’s surprise inspection bring about a change in ‘norm’ at Vidyut Bhawan?

Jaipur: CS Sudhansh Pant’s initiative to conduct surprise inspections of government offices revealed a new issue on Thursday. He found out that the Joint Secretary of the Energy Department, 2019 batch IAS officer Girdhar, sits in an office in Vidyut Bhawan and not in the Secretariat. CS immediately gave directions to Girdhar to wind up his office and work from the Secretariat.

Notably, according to the working system of Secretariat, Joint Secretaries of all depts have to sit in Secretariat because their entire office, right from section officer to Dy Secretary, sits in Secretariat. But the Energy Dept had become an exception to this rule. Over the past five years, about a dozen Joint Secretaries have been changed in the department including Chinmayi Gopal, Alok Ranjan, Anupama Jorwal, Artika Shukla, JS Moga, Saumya Jha, Manju, Kushal Yadav and now Girdhar. But only two or three JSs among these have worked from the Secretariat while the remaining others have worked from Vidyut Bhawan.

It is said that this has become a permanent arrangement that the head of the Energy Dept (be it an ACS or Principal Secretary or Secretary) also have the additional charge of Chairman of some Corporation. Thus, such HoDs sit in Vidyut Bhawan instead of the Secretariat even though their allotted room in Secretariat may remain closed. Furthermore, for their benefit, dept heads also call JS to Vidyut Bhawan to sit with them. But dept’s work suffers due to this. Now, after Pant’s surprise check, the system will become better.