Be courteous to elected persons, babus told

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 22

Taking a serious note of the inaccessibility of bureaucrats and heads of department, the government today issued directions to all the ‘babus’ to extend due courtesy to the elected representatives and ensure that they attend calls on their mobile phones.

A circular in this regard was issued by Chief Secretary P Mitra today, on the directions of the Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.

The circular mentions that due courtesy must be extended to all elected representatives and they must be given an appointment. Also, it was a common tendency of officers to not attend calls on their mobile phones and keep them invariably switched off, which should be checked.

The Chief Minister took serious note of the complaints of several public representatives, including sitting legislators from the Congress, Zila Parishad and panchayati raj, about officers not lending an ear to the problems raised by them.

Some Mahila Congress representatives from Kullu district had raised the issue during a Mahila Congress Convention, here yesterday. They rued that despite their party being in power, the officers were not even willing to grant them an audience, leave aside listening or resolving their grievance.

It is learnt that the Chief Minister has been getting similar complaints from party leaders and workers during his tours to various parts of the state.

A majority of party functionaries said there was a lot of resentment among the party workers on this account. In fact, even senior party leaders had admitted that the indifferent attitude of the bureaucracy towards the elected representatives was denting the image of the government.

A similar order had been issued by previous Chief Secretary S Roy during the BJP regime. In that order, Roy had taken serious note of the officers not taking calls and not being available when required for important administrative work.