Officials ignoring public reps violating service rule: Mahana

Lucknow: Speaker Satish Mahana on Wednesday urged the state government through parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna to ensure that the officers and bureaucrats follow proper protocol and return legislators' calls.The speaker said that reluctance on part of officials to follow the protocol despite several earlier government orders amounts to violation of the service rule.
The government should ensure desired action in the matter and present a stringent example so that such deeds by the officials are not repeated in future, Mahana said. Mahana gave his ruling on the point of order raised by leader of opposition Mata Prasad Pandey along with other SP members under Rule-300 on Tuesday. The notice stated that the executive was interfering in the domain of judiciary and legislature. Pandey on the occasion said that legislature, judiciary and executive have their own ambit and none has the right to interfere in other's domain. However, currently the executive is dominating even the legislature and at places even affecting the judiciary."Directives being given from the legislative assembly are not being implemented by the executive which is highly objectionable," Pandey said and added that the officers were not giving due respect to the MLAs and also not picking up their phone calls. Chief whip of the SP, Kamaal Akhtar, and senior party leader Sangram Yadav also echoed similar sentiments. They said that the legislators come here to work for the common man and not for their individual work. If officials are busy with some work, it is their responsibility to contact the MLAs once they are free. They said on many occasions even the directives of the judiciary are not implemented by officials.SP member Ragini Sonkar said that even if the officials are busy they can inform the MLAs through whatsapp, but most of them don't do so. Replying to the concern raised by the Opposition members, parliamentary affairs minister Khanna said that the executive was not dominating the legislature and the allegation was baseless. In the same government, officials have been punished for dereliction of their duty, Khanna said and added that officials should answer calls and if they are busy should return calls once they are free. Social welfare minister Asim Arun, who was an IPS officer before joining politics, said that there was a possibility that officials could not pick up calls because they were busy, unwell or on leave. But it is also true that some officials are lazy and their deeds are not in accordance with the service rule, Arun said and suggested that a separate number should be created through which UP Assembly can connect to the officials who do not pick up MLAs' phone.The speaker said that the concern raised by the members was a reflection of officials' non-cooperation with MLAs, which is a very serious matter. It looks that the government orders issued from time to time have not been implemented, which is highly objectionable."We are representing the people of the country and officials should understand that public work is of utmost importance," the speaker said and added that the government should ensure that MLAs' concern is looked into and those violating the government orders should be strictly dealt with.