Bhopal: Giving some anxious moments to staffers, most of whom have recently recovered from Covid-19, the Madhya Pradesh health department issued an order to employees and officers to start coming to office with immediate effect.
After close to 80 employees and officials including the staff employed on contract had tested positive for the novel coronavirus earlier this month, the health directorate was compelled to literally close down the office. Following which only half a dozen employees were functioning from another office in Satpura Bhawan to keep the official correspondence going.
The infection had not only knocked down the lower staff but also the top brass, including the then principal secretary Pallavi Jain Govil, director, joint director, additional directors and several deputy directors prompting the government to replace several senior officials.
As the staffers had kept falling prey to the novel coronavirus, the directorate was almost shut down.
An order issued by health commissioner Faiz Ahmed Kidwai on Monday, stated that several employees and officials weren’t turning up for work giving an impression that they were indifferent to their work. The health commissioner also assigned cell wise duty to officials and staffers directing them to report to duty without fail.
Those who have tested negative in second test and have completed mandatory quarantine period should report to office and those in quarantine period could work from home, said the order asking staffers to collect their pending test reports, if any.
It further said, that in order to ensure social distancing, masks, gloves and sanitisers would be provided to the staffers by the department.
Interestingly, the order expects that one room each is assigned to every employee or official.
"We function from cramped rooms, where desks are kept close to each other, so how are we going to find 180 rooms for 180 staff members who have been asked to report to duty," an employee of the directorate spoke to News18 on condition of anonymity.
The department hasn’t specified any work we are required to undertake, an officer said. Several staffers live inside containment zones in the city and might face difficulties in coming to office as their residential areas cordoned off, said the officer.
The order, however, also instructed minimal movement of files, advising use of soft copies for official functioning and has the divided the office hours into two shifts.
The commissioner himself hadn’t visited the office after the coronavirus cases were found in the department and was working from alternate locations.
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