In yet another bid to rein in the bureaucracy, the Arvind Kejriwal Government on Monday passed an order stating that from next week Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will hold review meetings of all the Principal Secretaries, Secretaries and Heads of Departments on every Monday. This week, however, the HODs’ meeting will be conducted on June 9.
Earlier, the Chief Secretary used to chair such meetings every fortnight. “It has been decided that HoDs’ meeting will be attended by all Ministers, administrative secretaries and HoDs on every Monday. Deputy Chief Minister would be chairing this meeting. The first of this series of weekly meetings should be held on June 9 at Conference Hall. However, all future HoDs’ meetings would be held on every Monday,” the order said. The order was issued by Rajendra Kumar, Secretary to Chief Minister, with the approval of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
According to sources, the decision has not gone down well with bureaucrats who believe that the presence of political bosses and Ministers will impact freewheeling discussions among the bureaucrats and senior officials.
‘The Kejriwal Government is trying to control bureaucracy. There are lots of things that come up for discussion, which has nothing to do with political bosses. This will further down the morale of bureaucrats in Delhi,” said a former Chief Secretary on condition of anonymity. It is also noted that Chief Secretary KK Sharma has chaired only three to four weekly meetings after joining the State Government. His predecessors DM Spolia and SK Srivastava used to chair such meetings on a weekly basis.