K’taka bureaucrats working overtime to clear over 50,000 pending files
Karnataka bureaucrats have to work overtime to clear pending files which have irked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. This Sunday looked different at the seat of power which is always deserted on holidays. But just to follow the diktat of the Chief Minister many heads of the departments like Revenue, Urban Development, Finance and others have worked to clear pending files making Vidhana Soudha, seat of power, a happening place on a Sunday.
As perceived by Siddaramaiah the pending files were an impediment to development. This sort of grinding, a file clearing yojna, for which the bureaucracy has never been used to on a holiday. According to Karnataka Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee this was a grind to keep house in order. He said, “This is a drive, this is not a new thing, we have been launching such drives...” .
It was to set “our own house in order” and the exercise was aimed at seeing that files which were unnecessarily lying on table unattended and also the reactions to people’s requests do not get late, he said. The bureaucracy got into full swing action after Siddaramaiah expressed his displeasure over pending files which were hampering development works.
Stating that this drive was to clear files that were pending without disposal, Mukherjee said, “... Our aim is to clear 50,000 files in three to four days, till yesterday 30,000 files were cleared, today (Sunday) public won’t be there so we aim to clear about 50,000 files.” “We should see how many of those files are of public interest, because many files are pending with court cases, many have to return after referring to the other departments...,” he added.
Mukherjee also cautioned that he has planned for a random check of files on Monday and if anything was unattended beyond 48 hours serious action will be initiated.