Jagan govt working on putting AP administration 'back on track'

Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, in tandem with Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, has initiated steps to put the Andhra Pradesh administration effectively back on track in full gear, now that “nearly all Covid-19-related restrictions have been lifted”.

Highly-placed official sources told PTI the Chief Minister was keen on a “mid-term course correction” as he completed half his tenure and hence the emphasis on streamlining the administration to meet his objectives.

Accordingly, on the directions of CM, the Chief Secretary issued a series of orders in recent days directing the Special Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of all departments to get themselves organised and make things effective.

The Chief Secretary first pulled up his subordinate bureaucrats for failing to tour the districts for field inspections.

“It has been brought to the notice of the government that Secretaries and Heads of Departments (HoDs) are not visiting the districts and conducting field visits. It is decided that every Special CS, Principal Secretary, Secretary and Head of Department should visit the districts for field inspections and meeting the beneficiaries at least a day per week,” Sameer Sharma said in one internal note.

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He asked the officers concerned to later submit a ‘back-to-office’ report on their field visit. In another order, the Chief Secretary designated every Thursday as the “only day” for Secretaries and HoDs for holding videoconferences with district Collectors and Joint Collectors.

This order came after some Collectors complained to the Chief Minister about “too many virtual conferences” depriving them of time for “actual work”.

“Apart from the weekly videoconference of the Chief Minister on Spandana (grievance redressal), we have at least two or three by the Chief Secretary himself and some more by the Secretaries. Preparing for these virtual meets itself is eating away our time,” some Collectors complained.

Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary Praveen Prakash immediately got into the act, on Jagan’s instructions, and sent a note on the issue to the Chief Secretary.

“Time and again, the CM has given instructions to Collectors and JCs to do inspections to ensure good quality in implementation of government flagship programmes. It has been brought to notice of the CM that Collectors and JCs in districts are not able to do effective inspections as almost every day one of the HoDs or Secretaries has meetings with Collectors and JCs,” the Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary pointed out.

On the CM’s direction, the Chief Secretary then issued a note to all concerned, designating each Thursday for videoconferencing (VC). Sameer Sharma has also brought in the ‘7x7 rule’ for all VCs, under which each presentation will contain only seven slides, with each slide having seven lines, each line of seven words and each word of seven letters.

“The aim is to ensure the meetings are useful and the state-level officers are able to get the maximum benefit from the meetings,” the Chief Secretary observed.

The Chief Secretary then issued yet another order doing away with virtual review meetings, conducted either by himself or the minister concerned.

“You are instructed to attend meetings physically as and when convened by the Chief Secretary or the minister concerned,” Sameer Sharma told the Special Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and Secretaries.

He pointed out that nearly all Covid-19 restrictions were lifted. And, he also instructed them to “attend office and operate from the Secretariat without fail”.

To keep a tab on truant bureaucrats, who have so far been operating from cushy offices elsewhere, the Chief Secretary asked them to mark attendance through biometric or touch-less facial recognition system “scrupulously”.

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