In a major transformation in bureaucracy, around 60% officers of Joint Secretary rank at Centre are reporting directly to the Secretaries in respective Ministries and departments, as government pushes to “de-layer, delegate and digitise” governance. The Additional Secretary posts are likely to become redundant with the change as efforts are underway to reduce the channel of submission of files to less than four.
V. Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAPRG) said in a presentation on the occasion of Good Governance Week that in 72 Ministries, the Joint Secretaries were directly reporting to Secretaries, 21 Ministries had partly implemented the system while seven Ministries including the Ministry of Home Affairs and Environment were yet to implement it. As on December 1, there were 65 Secretaries, 219 Additional Secretaries and 452 Joint Secretaries posted at the Centre, and of these 274 Joint Secretaries were directly reporting to the Secretary while 178 were reporting to the Additional Secretary first.
Speaking at a workshop on ‘Good Governance Practices’, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba said that all government files will migrate to ‘e-office’ by the end of February 2023. The top civil servant of the country added that all government offices should have creches, gymnasiums and restaurants.
“Adoption of e-office has increased significantly in the past few years but it should be ensured that there is no parallel work in electronic mode and physical mode. If notice for a meeting is being sent electronically, there should be no parallel paper work,” Mr. Gauba said.
Mr. Gauba highlighted the advantages of reducing levels in decision-making and said that it will only improve efficiency and save precious time in taking decisions in public interest.
Mr. Srinivas said the latest upgrade of e-office is an attempt to create a digital central secretariat where number of physical files will come down.
He said presently 31.65 lakh e-files have been generated and the percentage of adoption of digital office across Ministries is 81%.
“Ministries such as Women and Child Development, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Coal, Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region, Biotechnology, Social Justice, Scientific and Industrial Research, Parliamentary Affairs, Earth Sciences and Panchayati Raj are fully digitised,” Mr. Srinivas said.
He said classified files including that from Ministries of Home and Defence were not on the e-office platform.