How many employees do we have, asks Dispur

* Most DDOs tardy in providing complete database of employees * Government to withhold salaries & stop bills of defaulting DDOs

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Sept 1: An employer who does not know how many employees are working under him or her – may seem a strange employer, but then strange are the ways of Dispur. At a time when the crushing salary burden has become a nightmare for the State government, it continues to lack a complete database of the number of employees working in its various departments and offices spread across the State.

The situation reached such a sorry pass that last December, the Fince department had to issue a directive to all its 7,565 Drawing and Disbursal Officers (DDOs) to send their complete databases of government employees. But the response to this directive has been so lackadaisical that Dispur is now mulling strict action against defaulting DDOs.

Recently the Chief Secretary chaired a meeting to review the status of submission of databases of regular employees and wage employees in various administrative departments. The inordite delay in submission of databases evoked strong displeasure of the Chief Secretary.

So far, only 1,930 DDOs have bothered to submit complete lists, while 5,635 DDOs are yet to comply with the directive. The decision was filly taken to get tough with the defaulting DDOs, directing all Heads of departments and directorates to ensure that defaulting DDOs submit their databases ‘preferably by 31st August and not beyond 7th September’.

The Fince department will then conduct another review meeting, after which the list of DDOs, who still continue to default, will be compiled for initiating strict departmental action. This will include withholding their salaries and stopping all their non-salary bills, with necessary instructions to be issued to the concerned treasuries and sub-treasuries.

It needs be mentioned that while the salary burden of the State government last year was projected to be Rs 16,325.58 crore, it is expected to rise further to Rs 17,958.14 crore this fincial year.

Considering the frequent complaints by some State government employees in different departments and offices of not receiving their salaries, it is shocking indeed that Dispur still does not have complete figures of all the employees – thanks to the utter irresponsibility of most of the DDOs.