20 December 2000

GOVERNMENT ON HOLIDAY FROM FRIDAY

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: If you have any important work with the Government in Delhi, better come only in the new year as almost the entire Government of India is practically on holiday from Friday until the year end.

In fact, better will be to come to Delhi only on or after January 8 as a large number of bureaucrats have taken the 8-day leave to be on holiday for one full fortnight, making use of three Saturdays and Sundays plus the Christmas on Monday and the Ramzan Eid on Thursday.

Only a skeleton of senior bureaucrats will be left working in the Central Secretariat in the coming week as almost two-third of the secretaries, additional secretaries, joint secretaries and heads of the central police organisations have put in applications for the casual leave, with permission to leave station.

And, Cabinet Secretary T R Prasad, who cleared leaves of as many as 18 secretaries on Tuesday alone, has been very generous in allowing everyone make use of the casual leave which otherwise lapses with the end of the year. But those who applied for use of five days of the new casual leaves in the next year as well have been advised by Prasad to see if they can better return early. He is, however not strict. He has not refused leave in a single case, giving only advice not to put the Government to sleep for the long period of one full fortnight.

Even Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will not be available for the whole of the next week as he will be slipping out to a holiday resort in Kerala immediately after celebrating his birthday in Delhi on Monday and so he shall not be there when the government offices reopen on Tuesday after three days of recess.

He plans to have his birthday, which falls on the Christmas, part-celebrated in Delhi with all and sundry and then reach the Kumarakam bird sanctuary in Kottayam district the same day to have rest of the celebrations with family and very close friends. Unlike the bureaucrats who want to extend holiday even into the new year, Vajpayee shall be back in Delhi on December 31.

With Parliament's winter session coming to an end on Friday, most of the Union Ministers and Ministers of State are also wanting to leave Delhi for the year-ender. With the modern gadgets like cellular phones and fax machines, the ministers say they will be working even while on leave as their personal staff was being left behind to get in touch with them for any urgent work.

With the Kashmir cease-fire being extended further, there is not much activity even in the central police organisations and the Defence establishments. Inquiries revealed that the Naval chief Admiral Sushil Kumar is planning to have the year-end at mid-sea off Mumbai. Most of the Directors-General of the central police organisations have similarly applied to the Home Ministry for proceeding on leave. END