Writers’ staff persevere in dust culture

KOLKATA: Krishna Sarkar is an upper division clerk at the Writers’ Buildings, the seat of power of the West Bengal government. For the past 25 years, she has steadily worked her way up from the post of typist.
While her fortunes have changed over the years, her surroundings have not. She continues to contend with the same dust-covered files, crammed tables, balconies filled with broken furniture – hardly conducive for sustained or constructive work.“I am now used to all this,� says Sarkar.
At almost every department, rows and rows of files, dumped one upon the other, have been gathering dust for donkey’s years. Tables are pressed tightly against one another, and one has to get up to let his colleague move out of his seat. With temperatures running high for most of the year, employees literally have to sweat it out at work.
“How can you think of improving work culture while working in such a mess,� asks Pramod Das, a typist. His seat happens to be at the edge of a room which connects two passages, with one end kept free for people to pass through. “People are constantly bumping into me...how do you expect me to concentrate,� he grumbles. Members of the State Government Employees’ Federation (Nabaparjay), a breakaway group of the CPM-controlled co-ordination committee of state government employees, echoed similar sentiments.
“Things were worse a few years ago.With a number of departments now moving away to Salt Lake, the situation has improved somewhat. But the lack of cleanliness at Writers’ is marked,� says federation secretary Phatick Pal. Pal refuses to admit that work culture was bad. “It is true that some files may be held up. But can the government point to a single instance where development work has been held up due to some clerk shirking work,� he asks.
Co-ordination secretary Smarajit Roychoudhury admits work conditions weren’t perfect. “But our movement for a better workplace has borne fruit, with many departments moving out of Writers’ and vacating space. But we have a long way to go.�