LUCKNOW: Despite being asked to be present in office and meet people between 10 am and 12 noon as part of the Janta Darshan programme to resolve their issues locally, a surprise inspection by the chief minister’s office and chief secretary’s office through phone calls on landline numbers of district officials on Friday found that 16 district magistrates and 14 SPs were missing.
A government spokesperson said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had issued directions to all DMs and senior police officials to be present in their offices to interact with the public and to check whether orders were being followed, surprise calls were made to their office landline numbers on Friday morning, between 9.30 am and 12 pm.
Calls were also made from the additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi’s office to SPs of three zones, by DGP Mukul Goyal to SPs of three more zones and ADG (law and order) office to three additional zones.
“During the calls, 16 DMs and 14 SPs were found to be missing from their respective offices. The CM is extremely angry at this conduct and has issued show-cause notice to all of them. If they are unable to provide a satisfactory response and explain why they were not in office, then strict action will be initiated against them,” said the spokesperson.
After Friday’s experience, the CM has given directions to the CM office, CS office, additional chief secretary (home) and DGP to carry out regular monitoring of the Janata Darshan programme. “Other than the errant officers, all other DMs and police officers have also been warned against taking the Janata Darshan programme lightly. The CM has made it clear that more such surprise checking will be done and strict action will be taken against anyone who is not present in office,” said the spokesperson.
