50% staff attendance norm at TS Secretariat, govt. offices till July 31

Govt. for phase-wise introduction of e-Office developed by NIC

With the steep rise in COVID-19 cases in GHMC limits in the past few days, the State government has extended the guidelines pertaining to attendance of staff at different levels at the secretariat and other departments till July 31.

The government had initially directed that 50% of the office subordinates, data entry operators and other Class IV employees should attend duties on alternate weeks. Likewise, 50% of the clerical staff/circulating officers were asked to attend duty on alternate day basis while officers having separate chambers allotted to them should continue to attend duties regularly.

Section officers, assistant section officers, clerical staff and other categories employees who were not on duty on a particular day should, however, be present in the headquarters under any circumstances as they could be called for work in office on short notice. The same order would continue to be in force till the month-end owing to the rise in COVID-19 cases amid concerns expressed by the employees over their safety. Restrictions on movement of visitors, too, would continue and only people with prior appointments with the officials concerned would be allowed to enter the offices.

e-Office in phases

At the same time, the government has decided to introduce e-office, a software developed by the National Informatics Centre as part of the Digital India initiative, to put in place a paperless office system. The system would ensure minimal human interface and avoid scope for people-to-people contact in majority of the offices where most work is currently file-based.

The e-office system was introduced in some districts on pilot basis a couple of years ago and some government departments too are implementing the system. It would involve uploading the file online at the Section Officer level and its movement could be traced effectively at different levels. It would enable the movement of files irrespective of whether the officer concerned is in office or working from home, and it would enable higher officials to know the status of the file at any given point of time.

The system would ensure higher levels of transparency in the file movement and the officials concerned would be informed about the status of the file by alerts that would be sent to their mails or mobile phones from time to time.

The government has decided to appoint a nodal officer supported by a technical assistant in each department and directions had been issued to obtain digital signatures of the employees at different levels to support the system.