The heads of government departments and other staff usually have their hands full during elections. They can hardly attend to other work, and that has rendered people, who visit the offices, helpless as they have to return without their job done.
September 6, the day the Assembly was dissolved, was the last day that the officials attended to general grievances or conducted Prajavani, a public grievances redressal day on Mondays, except for a few instances when pressing matters were addressed.
“We have not issued any press statement that Prajavani will not be held, but I think people have understood by now that officials are busy with election work,” an official in the District Public Relations Office said.
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But it was also around the same time that the Election Commission of India instructed the officials to deposit funds as part of Rythu Bandhu in farmers’ accounts. “I have been visiting the bank and the Revenue office for the last one month, but there is no response. People with land issues at my village also got money, but I didn’t get any,” said Devadanam, a farmer in Nalgonda mandal. Another farmer, Lakshmi, was told that her credit was “automatically cut by the bank computer”.
According to an official source, 3.08 of 3.51 lakh farmers have been selected for the investment support based on the initial distribution now. And depending on treasury clearance, phase 7 and 8 credits were to be completed by Wednesday. But only about 93,000 beneficiaries have received money in their account till now.
Officials are also unavailable for everyday work. Shiva and Nagaraju, who have qualified the constable examination, visited the Mandal Revenue Office for the fourth day on Wednesday to get a community certificate, but could not get one. “Our last day to complete the application process for physical test is November 18. And the officials are not turning up here.”
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Hectic days
When contacted, the officials said they were busy, and the aggrieved should wait till the completion of elections. “My day starts with a conference with Joint Collector, field visits to inspect arrangements, meeting on divyang and their amenities, video conference with Collector, dealing with model code violations, or back again at Udayaditya Bhavan for a training session,” a senior officer said.
A Tahsildar in the neighbouring Suryapet district has a poster stuck outside his office that says: “All the revenue staff are busy with election duty and no services or complaints will be addressed till December 20. Please be patient and cooperate.”