UP govt offices wake up to new work culture

LUCKNOW: Officialdom in the city of nawabs is beginning to give up its nawabi habits Its bureaucrats are gradually substituting paan and gutka with chewing gum and toffees. And they're beginning to arrive at work on time. At 9.30am on Wednesday, there was no place to park the car on the main campus of the secretariat."Full attendance hai, Sahib... babu log kaam chalu kar diye hain... isliye parking full hai," remarks a guard at gate number 7. This was not so barely 10 days ago, in a place infamous for set-piece replies like, "Sahib lunch ke baad ayenge (sahib will arrive after lunch)", and "Aao chalo chai pi ke aate hain (come, let's go for a cup of tea)“.A peon at the secretariat was pulled up on Wednesday by a bureaucrat as soon as he fished out a pouch of "paan masala", and was reminded of the ban on chewing tobacco in government offices. The man sheepishly returned the pouch to his pocket.Another employee, a peon in the new Vidhan Bhavan building, said gutka and paan masala lovers were switching to chewing gum and toffees. "The best part is people no longer throw the wrapper around, they put it into their pockets," he said.The state forest department has even put up posters in its corridors that say "Aap camere ki nazar mein hain. Gutka khane par Rs 1,000 fine lagega (you're on camera. Chewing gutka will attract a fine of Rs 1,000)." Most office premises appear cleaner. Corners stained with paan and gutka spittle have become history.Attendance is up after the CM Yogi Adityanath urged bureaucrats to be ready to work 18-20 hours a day, warning them not to take home official files. A biometric attendance recording system for government offices is also in the offing.“Whether my room has been cleaned properly or not is the first thing that I see," said UP minister of state for water resources Upendra Tiwari. He makes sure he reaches office before 9.30 am and has directed his staff to ensure that files are kept in order and that no dust is allowed to settle.UP Cabinet minister SPS Baghel has directed his staff to give up chewing paan masala. In other offices, ministers are trying to set examples.At the Lal Bahadur Shastri Ganna Sansthan, UP, where the minister for cane development and sugar mills sits, an employee in the office of the UP cane commissioner said, "Our minister, Suresh Rana, arrives latest by 9.30 am, so how can we falter? It's natural that we must come before him."Transport minister Swatantra Deo Singh told TOI that no laxity on cleanliness would be countenanced. He headed the "Swachh drive" at the transport commissioner's office on the first day by cleaning the floor.Even senior ministers like Surya Pratap Shahi, Dharampal Singh and Suresh Khanna, besides others like Anupama Jaiswal, Neelkanth Tiwari, Srikant Sharma and Sidharth Nath Singh are following the orders to reach office on time and maintain a clean environment. The public is beginning to feel the ripple effects, too.Anita Sharma, a housewife in Mahanagar area, is happy to see her maid arrive before time. "My cook could never make it to my house before noon because she works in the nearby secretariat officers' colony. But, for the past one week, she has been arriving by 11am. I was surprised to hear that the new CM was the reason. She told me that secretariat employees had started calling her at 7 am because they have to reach office by 9am,“ she said.