Mumbai: In his first month after taking over as chief minister for the third time, Devendra Fadnavis has been putting his stamp on the state administration as well as Mantralaya, the state secretariat.
Chief Minister Fadnavis has set targets for the first hundred days for civil servants in charge of state departments as well as the extended administration at district levels. Under him, the state government has also amended the rules of business to have faster movement of files, and is moving towards an e-cabinet system, where everything will be digital, eliminating the need for a large sheaf of papers to be circulated from one department to another ahead of cabinet meetings.
The e-cabinet system is expected to eliminate the need for extensive paperwork with all proposals, remarks and presentations available on a dashboard. Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik gave a presentation on this to the cabinet Tuesday.
“All these steps have been taken mainly with the intention of bringing in speed and efficiency in the way the government works. The rules of business, particularly, date back to 1975, and this is just the third time that they have come to power,” an official from the chief minister’s office, who wished not to be named, told ThePrint.
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Under Fadnavis, the state government has also fortified the state secretariat by introducing flap barriers, radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled cards and facial recognition technology for entry into Mantralaya and restricting access to the chief minister’s office on the sixth floor.
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The Fadnavis stamp on governance
Fadnavis Tuesday addressed all divisional commissioners, district collectors, municipal commissioners, police commissioners and police superintendents, directing them to implement at least two provisions that would significantly ease the lives of people depending on their services.
He directed them to ensure that the pendency of files is brought down to zero, that department websites are updated with all the basic information expected under the Right to Information Act, and that all people’s issues that can be solved at the local level actually are resolved there.
People should not have to travel to Mantralaya all the way to seek resolution of local issues, the chief minister said. He set a deadline of 15 April for officials to implement all his suggestions.
Earlier, soon after taking over as chief minister, Fadnavis had held a similar meeting with secretaries of Mantralaya departments where he emphasised the need for transparency, digitisation and ease of living for people. He had asked all departments to prepare a plan for the first 100 days of the government and has been evaluating these plans department by department ever since.
He also brought in a competitive spirit within departments, saying the best-performing departments would be recognised in his cabinet meetings.
The same day, the Fadnavis cabinet also decided to amend the rules of doing business, clarifying the process of putting up proposals before the cabinet, the chief minister’s office and the governor, the process of putting up bills, and so on.
“The amendment in the rules of business clarifies the role of all authorities—the chief secretary, the chief minister, the cabinet, the governor. It also says that any government order must be issued by an officer not junior to undersecretary level. Earlier, files used to originate at the level of the desk officer too, making their overall journey a longer one,” the above-mentioned official in the CMO said.
Access to Mantralaya controlled
For years, the entire staff of the CMO sat on one side of the sixth floor of the state secretariat. Now, a part of this staff—the public relations team of the CMO—will be seated on the fifth floor. The chief minister’s secretaries and officers on special duty will be seated on the sixth floor next to the chief minister’s office.
The public relations officials are usually the ones who get the highest number of visitors from the general public as well as media professionals. Such visitors will now be confined to the fifth floor with there being restrictions on access to the sixth floor due to security reasons, another official from the CMO told ThePrint.
Fadnavis had last week said that the government was introducing a robust new security system in Mantralaya that would help track exactly where a visitor was going in the building. He had also said that there were allegations of brokers roaming around in the state headquarters in large numbers and that this system would help weed such people out, control crowding and improve security.
Under the new system, expected to roll out this month, the government has installed flap barriers at the main gates that can be opened using RFID cards, while access to internal offices will be possible only through facial recognition. All elected representatives, employees and visitors will be given RFID cards. The sensitive sixth and seventh floors of the government will need special passes, Fadnavis had said.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
