Ramadas surprise visit jolts officials

MYSORE: District Minister S A Ramadas, who paid a surprise visit to the Commercial Tax Department office, was greeted by empty chairs as a majority of the officials, most of them without reason,  were absent.The Minister was shocked to see that 45 out of 135 staff were absent. While seven had applied for casual leave, the attendance of other officials was marked as CL though there was no letter to justify the claim. He pulled up the superintendent K M Nagraj for entering ‘CL’ in attendance register without a leave letter and prior permission of the  authorities concerned.The office wore a deserted look as there was no strength of staff in eight sections. However, the authorities present played the same game by maintaining that ‘the rest of the officials were on their way to the office,’ though the time had already crossed 11 am.Ramadas directed the authorities to install biometric attendance system at the office before September 1 as the system had proved its help in maintaining discipline in the Revenue and other departments in the district. Noting that the collection of commercial tax had come down drastically after 2005, the Minister said that leading industries in the region have hoodwinked the department.He spoke to DC P S Vastrad and the Commercial Tax Commissioner about his visit and instructed them to immediately take action against the erring officials.He said that similar visits would be paid to streamline the administration in all the government departments in the district.