Special Officer (2000-07-07 to 2001-05-24) - 0 years, 10 months, 17 days
- Created a nicely and aesthetically designed petitioner friendly atmosphere at the CM’s Special Cell
- When I took over, more than 25,000 petitions were lying unattended to. This was a major problem, as daily huge backlog was piling up. When queried, it was found that there was unequal distribution of work among the staff. The whole system was analyzed and a new system put in place, such that every staff member was given more or less equal amount of work viz-a- viz his/her peers, creating an environment of team work and goodwill. Thus we were able to clear the backlog. From then on, thanks to the computerization drive, we could ensure that not a single petition remained unattended on a daily basis. We were able to close office at exactly 5.45 pm.
- Motivation session: Due to certain reasons, the morale of the staff was very low, with the result that an office, which should work with clockwork precision, was working in a disorderly and directionless manner. Hence the first priority was to ensure that the office worked liked a team. This I could achieved by constant meetings with officers and staff, and motivation sessions from 2.00pm to 5.00 pm every Friday. During such sessions, one APO would present the latest schemes and orders of one department. This brought about a sea change in the attitude of the all the staff, and this was reflected in their dealings with each other and the public alike.
- 100% computerization: When I joined the office, there was only 11 working computer terminals (networked) and 9 dump terminals! Also, only 20% of the petitions i.e only “Follow p” petitions were being fed into the computer application. The balance 80% treated as “Non-follow- up” were being entered in a register, so much so that it was difficult to retrieve details of the petitions, to the disgruntlement of the petitioners. This was a situation I could not reconcile myself with! Irrespective of how we treated the petitions, the petitioners had a right to know the fate of their petitions! After prolonged discussions with staff and NIC personnel, it was decided that all petitions received at the office would be computerized. The development of the software was entrusted to NIC. We managed to procure 22 more dump terminals from NIC, thanks to the close coordination with the Director NIC. This meant that each of the 22 ASO’s and 7 Typists now had a terminal to himself/herself, making data entry efficient and smooth.
- The software hitherto available was installed 5 years earlier in UNIX OS and had become obsolete when the question of 100% data entry cropped up. A new software also in UNIX was developed by NIC in consultation with me, and the same was installed. Now we could track the fate of each and every petition irrespective of whether it was “Follow up” or otherwise.
- Review software: As Special Officer, I was authorized to convene review meetings with nodal officers of Secretariat departments, HoDs and District Administration through the SDC (PGRC). Every such review would mean unnecessary expenditure on printing out details of petitions. It was decided that we should develop an application that could help us do the review efficiently. NIC responded promptly and lo and behold we had a review software that we used to do a paperless review at the 10 th floor conference hall.