Government officials throw ID card rule to the wind

COIMBATORE: Not wearing identity cards has become the new normal for government employees, despite a high court direction and state government order mandate them to wear the same through the working hours.
While the state government had in 1986 directed its employees to sport their name badges, in July last the Madras High Court had made it mandatory for all the government employees as well as those working for local bodies and other government instrumentalities to wear identity cards during the working hours.
Activist C Saravana Kumar said, “But not everyone seems to obey the norms. Even during the meetings held by district collector and ministers, officials are seen without identity cards.” He had filed several petitions urging the state government to take necessary steps to make the officials wear identity cards.
“We do not even know who we are talking to. Sometimes, outsiders are made to do office works and it is difficult to distinguish between the officers and the outsiders. If all the officials are made to wear identity cards, no outsider could sit on an official’s chair and do their work,” Saravana Kumar said. Recalling several RTI replies that said the sought documents had gone missing, he said such cases could be prevented by restricting the access to outsiders.
A government official, who didn’t want to be named, said officials from several departments, especially the ones that deal with schools, have been making teachers to handle their work.
Recollecting numerous instances when officials were spotted outside their office whiling away the time, Saravana Kumar said wearing an identity cards would give them a feeling that they are being watched. As the public visit government offices constantly, officials could not be differentiated from visitors without an id card, he said.
The activist said it has become difficult to identify the name of the official if someone wanted to raise a complaint against him or escalate the issue as, most of the times, nobody in the department would reveal their names if their terms with the public were not good.
When contacted, district collector K Rajamani said, “It is compulsory for the government employees to have identity cards and it was introduced mainly to differentiate the government employees from others. Most of the employees are having it and steps would be taken to ensure that the remaining employees also carry the identity card.”