UP govt approves advance payment for home guards on poll duty
In a significant move, the state government has given approval to the advance payment of duty allowances for Home Guard volunteers enlisted for duty during the Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday accused Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal of by- passing him on the file related to the filling up the vacant posts in government hospitals. The Chief Minister urged the LG to return the file for his “comments”.
Kejriwal in a letter to the LG has written that the file was directly sent to LG’s office without consulting the concerned Ministers, including him for their comments.
The Chief Minister said in a meeting with medical superintendents of all Delhi government hospitals on 16 August 2017, a decision was taken under which all medical superintendents were asked to immediately fill up the vacant posts by hiring requisite experts from outside on contract basis till these posts were filled up on regular basis.
Kejriwal said that the CS (chief secretary) was directed to seek LG’s approval to empower the MS to be able to do that. However, Kejriwal said, I am told that the bureaucracy has imposed such conditions that as a result no MS would be able to practically hire anymore.
“I understand that the proposal for the same has been sent to you (L-G) without showing it to the health minister, the finance minister or the chief minister,” Kejriwal said in a letter to Baijal.
“Before the file was sent to you, I called for the file. To my utter surprise, the senior officers refused to show me the file saying that they have been instructed by Hon’ble LG not to show this file to any Minister including the CM. I would urge you to kindly send the file to me so that myself and my ministers could offer our comments on the basis of our extensive visits to various hospitals and our interaction with several patients, doctors and hospital staff,” Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal said there is a huge shortage of staff in all Delhi government hospitals and urged the LG to take necessary steps to fill up the vacant posts on an urgent basis and in a time bound manner as “services” comes directly under his domain.
“I do appreciate that with best efforts, it would take a few months to fill up the posts. In the meanwhile, we cannot allow our hospitals to work without staff even for a day. I am told that a few lives could have been saved if staff were available to operate ventilators in some hospitals,” Kejriwal said.
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