Ministers ignore N Chandrababu Naidu's Friday diktat'

Vijayawada: Ministers are ignoring the instructions of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to attend to grievance redressal every Friday at the temporary Secretariat. Except one or two, no minister is seen at the Secretariat. Even those who do, don’t come every Friday.

Even officials tend to leave office on Friday afternoon itself as it is a 5-day working week at the Secretariat. Ministers not coming to the Secretariat makes it ‘easier’ for them to leave on the last working day of the week. The public are suffering as the ministers are not available on grievance redressal day which is purposefully conducted on Fridays.

“All ministers, special chief secretaries, principal secretaries and secretaries to government and heads of departments are requested to be available at the headquarters and in their offices every Friday to receive representations from the public for redressal of their grievances,” Chief Secretary Satya Prakash Tucker had said in an official circular on October 20, 2016.

“All private secretaries to ministers are requested to bring the above instructions to the notice of the ministers so that accordingly their schedule may be planned,” the Chief Secretary added in the circular.

The instructions were issued based on a directive from the Chief Minister, who received several complaints from MLAs and other public representatives that ministers and senior officers were not present in the state headquarters.

Since October 20, till date there have been nine Fridays but not a single minister turned up at the Secretariat even four times. Many haven’t come at least once.
Last Friday, the day after the Cabinet meet, five ministers — K.E. Krishnamurthy, Paritala Sunita, Ravela Kishore, Kollu Ravindra and Siddha Raghava Rao — were seen at the Secretariat.

Even though all ministers were in Vijayawada as the Cabinet and coordination committee meetings went on till late in the night of December 15, they didn’t come to the secretariat the next day though it was Friday.

A Secretariat official said, “We have seen ministers of education, health, labour and employment, forests and environment, and irrigation who should have regular interaction with the public in the Secretariat on Fridays, only two or three times.

K. Ganesh who came from Nellore to meet the education minister said that he had been trying to meet to the minister since the past two months on service-related issues, but in vain. This is the situation with all the departments.

Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy as Chief Minister between 2004 and 2009 had put in place a system wherein ministers were required to visit the Secretariat every Monday to take up official work. In subsequent years, that system was ignored.

Things turned worse in the last one year when the CM functioned from Vijayawada while the Secretariat was located in Hyderabad. With the Secretariat and offices of the heads of department relocated to state capital region, it was expected that things will once again fall in place but still the situation is the same.