"Govt employees work 5 hrs a day"
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, July 03 2016: The State Government employees normally remain in their offices for just around 5 hours a day on the average although they had only 82 working days till the end of June this year, inde-pendent researcher Serto Ton- dana has revealed in a new finding.

Addressing a press conference at Manipur Press Club, Serto said that being a leap year, 2016 has 366 days.

This year, the State Government has 89 holidays � 25 State holidays, 52 Sundays and 12 Second Saturdays.

As such, the State Government would have only 277 working days.

Till June, the State Government had only 137 work- ing days as 47 days were holidays, Serto said.

A deserted market shed during bandh (file)

Out of this 137 days, around 55 days were affected by bandhs and other stirs according to official data collected from the Departments concerned.

As such, there were only 82 normal working days for the State Government Departments till the end of June, Serto said.

He further said that the Central Government had 53 more working days although it had 49 holidays including Sundays and Saturdays till the end of June.

The Central Government got 135 working days till June end, he added.

Serto further said that although some staff work full eight hours a day in State Government offices, majority of the employees do not remain more than five hours a day in the office.

However, in Central Government offices across the country, the staff work for eight hours in most States, Serto said.

Saying that biometrics attendance machines are not functioning properly in most of the State Government Departments, Serto said that most of the employees attend office late and return home before the completion of office hour.

However, it does not mean that all the State Government employees are unpunctual, he said and added that there are also many sincere staff who come on time and work full eight hours.

In addition to the impact of bandhs and other stirs, precious working hours are wasted due to the unpunctuality and sincereity of the staff in State Government Departments, he said.

It is unfortunate that the Government has not taken up any measure to check it till date, he added.

He urged the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary to look into the matter to bring about changes in the functioning of its Departments.

In December last year, Serto had revealed through a survey that the State has been losing Rs 36 crore per day every time when there is a bandh or general strike and Rs 3.09 crore per day when there is economic blockade.

In November same year, Serto and some of his friends revealed another finding on the total loss of money when public had to take longer routes due to closure of Sanjenthong.

They revealed that people had lost a total amount of Rs 35,94,30524.3 from May 31, 2014 to November 15, 2015 due to closure of the bridge that connects Imphal East and Imphal West.