The biometric system is yet to be installed in the State police headquarters despite its need being stressed by many to improve the work culture that has assumed appalling proportions.
The State Government keeps dithering despite the Narendra Modi Government having cracked the punctuality whip on the ‘lazy’ Central Government officials. It has worked wonder in the Centre, but the State chooses to wallow in the bogs of what can be called laidback connivance with the status quo.
Observers ask when PM Modi can make the IAS/ IPS officers to turn up and leave offices at the time fixed for them by installing biometric attendance, then why does CM Harish Rawat keep dragging his feet to make the cops in the police headquarters to fall in line.
However, some senior IPS officers say the State government should crack the attendance whip via biometric system in the Secretariat first. “But they are procrastinating to go for it lest the powerful employees’ union sees red and decides to humble the ruling party in the upcoming hustings a year away. The senior administrative and other officers are also hostile to the idea of biometric attendance, for they have got habituated to the easy-going ambience prevailing there for ages,” said one of the IPS officers, requesting anonymity.
Things are grim at the DGP office known as State police headquarters. Most of those working there rarely reach it at 10 am as they are bound to do. They go for lunch around 1 pm. Some of them go to lunch at 1.30 pm or 2 .30 pm at their own sweet will. Cases are galore of some returning to the office after 4 pm. And most of them make it a point to leave for home before 6 pm. It has been observed that some IPS officers except the senior most of them, follow this rule if the DGP is not in the police headquarters.
Senior police officers who are deputed at the police headquarters are in a sulk mode. They say they are here because they are honest and they have no political connection to work at the district levels, particularly, in the plain districts. “Deployment in the police headquarters is a kind of punishment posting for us,” this is the refrain that runs among the upper rung cops.
However, the lower rung cops are happy as they enjoy their works that are hardly for six hours a day whereas they have to sweat it hard for as long as12 to 15 hours a day if they are posted in the district-based police stations. One of the lower rung police employees say while talking to this correspondent that they are following the lead of their seniors. “The seniors work for barely six hours. Why should we work moreIJ” he said, chuckling.
However, there are some IPS officers who are feeling ill at ease in the ambience that is prevailing in the police headquarters.
“I have learnt from my colleagues who are now serving the Central government that they reach their offices sharp at 10 am and leave at 6 pm. This is thanks to the biometric system operating there. As they live in Gurgoan they have to start around 7 am to reach the office at 10 am. The situation was not the same earlier. Contrast this with what is prevailing here. Here they come around 11 am or even later as things suit them. They leave earlier than they ought to. This is damaging for the credibility of the police headquarters that can be called the nerve centre of the whole policing system,” he said despairingly. The question is-who would show the spunk to bell the cat particularly when the election is approaching fastIJ