- Delay in transfers affecting functioning of state admin

By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 26 July: With the government dilly-dallying on transfers of district and state level officials, all work at the collectorates, health offices and even at the Secretariat is on hold. It has been more than two months since the process of transfers of the officials was initiated by the government. 1 July had been fixed as the deadline for all the transfers in the state administration. However, the government has failed to issue transfer orders in any of the departments, so far.
This has seriously affected working of various departments as the officials are unsure whether they would be transferred or not and where, if at all. The number of files pending is only increasing by the day.
Sources said that during the meantime, thousands of applications for transfers have piled up at various offices, making it further difficult for the senior government officials to deal with them. The worst scenario is seen at the Secondary Education Directorate. The Secondary Education department is facing the unenviable task of finalising the transfers when most of the applications are accompanied with recommendations from some of the other powerful VIP, mostly from the ruling party.
Sources said that the only way to deal with the applications was to go strictly by the policy of transfers in the education department. The policy has never been implemented in right spirit, so far. This year, the situation is reportedly worse with the policy being ignored totally by the officials concerned.
Even in the cases that are primarily dealt with by the Chief Minister, there is inordinate delay in approval of the transfers. The same indecision is observed even in the case of posting to crucial posts like Director General of Police (DGP). The state is without a permanent DGP for more than ten days now. The District Magistrates were to be transferred in April. However, even after 3 months, the government has been unable to take any final decision in this regard.
It is the same case with the transfers of Chief Medical Officers, District Treasury Officers, Additional District Magistrates besides any transfers within the Secretariat.