E-Paper
Third time in two years, U.P. government tells officers to pay attention to public representatives
The U.P. government had issued similar directives twice in 2021 (ahead of 2022 UP assembly polls) asking its senior officers to be courteous to all MPs, MLAs and MLCs in accordance with protocol norms
The UP government has once again asked its senior officers to be courteous to all the MPs, MLAs and MLCs in accordance with protocol norms and ensure that officers receive all phone calls of public representatives or call them back, if unavailable or in a meeting.
“You are directed again to follow self and direct officers/employees under your supervision to ensure display of courtesy and following of protocol norms to honorable members of Parliament, MLAs and MLCs. All the officers should receive phone calls of public representatives and call them back if in a meeting or unavailable,” said chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra in an order dated June 14.
“It has come to notice that the orders about parliamentary courtesies are not being strictly followed by the officers despite clear directives,” said the chief secretary in his order sent to all the additional chief secretaries/principal secretaries/secretaries, director general of police, divisional commissioners and district magistrates, asking them to ensure compliance.
The state government had issued similar directives twice in 2021 (ahead of 2022 UP assembly polls).
A large chunk of public representatives, including those from the BJP and the opposition, have been making complaints that officers and employees were not receiving their calls despite the state government’s directives. “All the officers and the employees will accord prescribed protocol and show due courtesy to the MPs and members of the state legislature under any circumstances. The officers and employees will save the phone numbers of MPs and members of the state legislatures from their respective districts in their offices and mobile phones... and also ensure that the issues/suggestions made to them are resolved on priority,” said the then chief secretary RK Tiwari in an order issued on November 11, 2021. Tiwari issued such instructions again to senior officers on March 23, 2021 as well.
Speaker of Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly Satish Mahana and minister for parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna were not available for comments.
“This is an important issue. It had come up for discussion at the meeting of privilege committee of state legislative council too. The state government had issued the orders earlier too following discussions at the privilege committee meeting. We are sure the officers will follow the state government’s fresh directives,” said Vijay Pathak, BJP MLC and chairman of privilege committee of state legislative council.
“Yes, the state government is consistently issuing such directives to all the officers to follow protocol norms, display courtesies to public representatives and receive calls of all the MPs and legislators. But the BJP government appears to have no control over the officers and so the public representatives are not getting their due respect. There is no point in issuing such orders unless compliance is ensured,” said Samajwadi Party spokesman and MLC Rajendra Chaudhary.
