Cannot skip govt duty for Annapurna tasks: State to staffers

Kolkata: The govt has withdrawn the “on-duty” status of state officials assigned to Annapurna Yojana work. This means, booth-level officers (BLOs), Anganwadi workers and other state officials, who are tasked to process and verify appeals by beneficiaries of the women’s social welfare scheme, will be marked absent if they skip their duties at schools or other govt departments to carry out the “additional assignments”.

An order was issued to the heads of all major govt departments that stated: “All field-level functionaries engaged in Annapurna Yojana-related activities shall continue to perform duties relating to distribution, collection, enquiry and verification of forms as assigned by the competent authority. With immediate effect, the on-duty status extended to such functionaries for Annapurna Yojana-related activities stands withdrawn.”

Going by the order, state employees will not be allowed to skip their govt job roles to carry out the social welfare scheme assignments. SDOs, BDOs, municipal authorities and supervisory officers have been asked to ensure “Annapurna Yojana work continues uninterrupted and receives due priority without adversely affecting regular departmental functions”.

This order has not gone down too well on govt officials, especially BLOs, who pointed out that the “excess” burden of work, which never came under the purview of their jobs, was being forced on them. A teacher at a Baguiati school, who recently finished her BLO duty, received the fresh order, stating they would have to carry out both the duties simultaneously. The teacher said, “The order is confusing. It says I have to perform both duties but field visits will not be easy after spending a whole day at school.”

Another schoolteacher in Shyampukur area said, “As far as I know, no one in this constituency has received such an order so far. We are still continuing with SIR work, like form corrections. The work pressure is low now. At the same time, as a teacher, I am not supposed to perform field visits as part of the social welfare scheme assignments. Some of my friends in other constituencies received the order and in some cases, some of the orders were recently withdrawn. This confusion should be cleared first. According to the circular, teachers can be assigned to duties only related to census, elections and natural calamities. Then why are we being picked up for every such work?”