Chairing a meeting of senior officers of Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh informed that the “Flexi (Flexible)” attendance option has been further extended till June 15, in view of the current COVID pandemic situation.

This is in continuation of an earlier order providing for the flexy attendance in the offices. Prior to that, the offices were expected to function on a pattern of 50% attendance.

The key highlights of the present order are (a) Secretaries of the Ministries/Departments and Heads of Department of Attached & Subordinate Offices are mandated to regulate the attendance of its employees, at all levels, keeping in view the COVID positive cases in the office and the functional requirement. (b) Persons with Disabilities and Pregnant Women employees may be exempted from attending office, but they shall continue to work from home. (c) officers/staff shall follow staggered timings to avoid overcrowding in offices/workplaces as decided by the Heads of Department (d) All officers/staff residing in the containment zone shall be exempted from coming to offices till the containment zone is denotified. These officers/staff who are residing in the Containment Zone shall work from home and shall be available on telephone and electronic means of communications at all times (e) All officials who attend office shall strictly follow Covid-appropriate behaviour including wearing of mask, physical distancing, use of sanitizer and frequent hand-washing with soap and water.

The Minister also hoped that all these instructions will be followed in letter and spirit in the interest of the well-being of all the citizens and government employees and their families. He, however, reiterated that official work will not be allowed to suffer and all attempts will be made to minimise the loss of man-days on account of government employees falling sick on account of COVID.

Dr Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction that the concept of “vaccination at workplace” had emerged as a successful model and urged the States/UTs to emulate the same. He said, at the vaccination centre set up at the North Block, over 228 had received vaccination so far and said that such centres are also being set up in other Central Government offices and departments. He once again renewed his appeal for speedy vaccination of all the eligible central government employees of the age of 18 years and above.

Dr Jitendra Singh recalled that during the last one year of the pandemic, DoPT had developed a set of guidelines to be followed in the government offices, which not only sought to contain the spread of CoronaVirus but also aimed to carry on the office functioning effectively and without interruption. He said, the Work from Home (WFH) protocol developed by DoPT had been so successful that many a time, the work output was even more than the normal circumstances because government functionaries were working online even on the weekdays or holidays.

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SNC