MUMBAI, 12 January 2007 — The western Indian state of Maharashtra will punish government officials who sit on files, promising to speed up India’s notoriously slow bureaucracy.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that from now on officials belonging to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS) who are found to be delaying clearing files will face disciplinary action. The state assembly will pass legislation to this effect.
Deshmukh said the government has decided to amend the Maharashtra Government Servants Transfer Act and Delay in Implementation of Government Duties Ordinance passed May 25, 2006 to incorporate the latest Cabinet decision, which would make the bureaucracy work much better.
“The law was enacted last year to speed up the working of the government machinery, and the IAS, IPS and IFS officers were excluded from the provisions of the law.” But after reviewing the progress and shortcomings in the law, the Cabinet had taken a decision to bring the bureaucracy under the purview of the law” and a government order to this effect would be released soon, the chief minister said.
According to the law, it is mandatory for an officer to clear urgent files within four days, ordinary files in seven days, decision on files which need the remarks of other departments within 45 days, and files which need inquiries to be made a maximum period of 90 days. The government warned the bureaucracy that any delay beyond the stipulated period as mentioned in the law would invite disciplinary action and also adverse remarks would be made in their annual confidential report (ACR).
Aside from this, the government may also resort to the use of Article 311 of the Indian constitution to dismiss the officers who fail to perform and adhere to the government decisions.
The Cabinet decision to bring the top bureaucrats, police officers and forest officers under the scope of the law, from which they were excluded, has angered the officers. They said it was a populist decision aimed at pleasing the public ahead of elections to the civic bodies and the legislature assembly in the state.
