india

Updated: Jun 23, 2019 12:18 IST

Making a pitch for effective governance in his fifth term, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday asked senior bureaucrats to be accountable to the public stressing that his office would monitor the implementation of 5T principle - technology, transparency, teamwork, time and transformation.

Speaking to the officials in the State Secretariat, Patnaik said the heads of departments would spend the first half of every Saturday on deliberating on implementation of ‘5Ts’ & for training, brainstorming of innovative ideas for the development of the state.

“Thousands of citizens go to tehsil offices. Do we know what is their experience? Do we know what is the experience of rural housing beneficiaries with the government? Does the transport department take feedback from young people who get licences? Does the health department take feedback from patients admitted in government hospitals? What is their level of satisfaction? What about sub-registrar offices? What is the level of citizen satisfaction in these offices,” he asked, adding that the hallmark of good governance is citizen satisfaction and there was huge scope for improvement.

Patnaik said all these offices exist for citizens as they run with their money.

“I want you to look at all services from the citizen’s point of view. I write your performance appraisal reports. People write my performance appraisal reports. I want a link between the two. Both of us have to be accountable. I sincerely mean it,” he said.

He asked the senior IAS officers to make the State’s policies the best in the country in every sector.”If the best state in the country is providing X. Let’s do X Plus. I want to focus on employment and value addition on a big scale comparable to the best in the world,” he added.

Hours after Patnaik’s engagement with the IAS officers, the state government said the fourth Saturday of every month would be a general holiday for government employees. The office working hours will now be from 10 am 5:30 pm with half an hour lunch break from 1:30 pm to 2 pm.