Collector imposes penalty on 591 officials

Eluru: West Godavari Collector K Bhaskar has imposed Rs 1,000 as a penalty to 591 officials for their negligence in clearing the representations received during Mee Kosam Grievance Cell programme in the district.

The Collector directed the concerned officials to cut the penalty from the salaries of those officials who failed to clear the files under Mee Kosam. The total penalty amount stood at Rs 5,91,000.

Presiding over the District-level Officials’ Coordination Committee meeting held at Collectorate on Monday, the Collector said that several representations were received in Mee Kosam programme conducted on Monday. However, the officials concerned did not clear those representations even after two months time, the collector said. 

He pointed out that 591 representations are pending with various officials over last two months.  Expressing the displeasure over the officials, the Collector said the concerned official should pay Rs 1,000 for each pending application. 

During Janmabhoomi programme, he said 712 applications were received and of which 679 were cleared and the remaining 33 applications were pending. Besides this, about 139 applications were pending under Alert Management System.

He warned that if these AMS applications not settled by Tuesday, those officials should pay Rs 1,000 each as the penalty and in the night around 7.00 PM should meet him to give an explanation.

The Collector said that earlier, the district administration has imposed Rs 10 for the non-clearance of grievances of public. As the trend is continuing, the penalty has been enhanced to Rs 1,000. He warned that even after the penalty, if anyone found guilty of discharging their duties, departmental action would be initiated. He said the Centre had sanctioned Rs 10 crore to the district during cyclone time from 2009 to as on date.

However, the concerned officials did not give the utility certificate (UC) to the used funds. If anyone did not give the UCs, the April month salary will be stopped, he stated.  He pointed out that the concerned officials have spent the funds time to time and did not issue the utilisation certificate.