Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced that the Chief Minister’s office in Guwahati will now function 24 hours a day. The CM confirmed this development during a press conference he had held in Assam Bhavan in Delhi today.
While answering the question by a journalist about reports in local media in Assam that he has ordered that the CMO will remain open for 24 hours a day, the CM confirmed the same. He said that as ministers don’t have office times, he has decided that CMO will remain open the whole day, and he has already split the staff in the office into three shifts of eight hours each.
Explaining the rationale behind the decision, he said, ‘Say I return to Guwahati after visiting other places at 12 in the night, and there are files pending in the office waiting my signature. Instead of going home and signing the files in the next morning, I can go to the office directly, sign the files, and then go home. Moreover, if some officers like DCs and SPs want to talk to the CM’s office in the night for some purpose, they will be able to do it.’
He further informed that his office already coordinated late in the night with the arrests following the brutal assault on a doctor in Hojai after the death of a patient. He said that the local police officials called the CMO at 3 AM to update on the latest developments, and they were able to reach the CM at that hour.
CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said that even if someone wants to meet the CM outside office hours, he will give appointments. ‘If someone wants to meet me at 12 AM in the night, I will give an appointment, if I have time,’ he said.
He said that with these arrangements, the amount of work completed in a day will go up, and with that objective, the staff has been split into three shifts.
He said that people keep talking about improving work culture, but the ministers have to set an example for that. If ministers work for longer hours, automatically more work will be done in the offices, he said.
Himanta Biswa Sarma was on a visit to Delhi for the first time after he became the CM. He met PM Modi yesterday in the afternoon. He also met other senior ministers like Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Hardeep Singh Puri, Dharmendra Pradhan, Harsh Vardhan, Prakash Javadekar, Nitin Gadkari, Narendra Singh Tomar on June 1 and 2. He had also met vice president Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, and senior BJP leaders. He said that the meetings were courtesy visits after he became the CM of Assam.
