Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday directed the chief secretary to work out two shifts for Mantralaya staffers and officials. He also directed officials to work out how many departments can be given work-from-home facilities to reduce the number of employees visiting Mantralaya.
Around 75 state secretariat employees have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past two days.
At the NITI Aayog meeting last week, Thackeray had talked about the need to adopt staggered office timings to lessen crowding in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also held a separate meeting with top bureaucrats including Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar and Maharashtra Gazetted Officers Association’s Chief Advisor GD Kulthe. “Let’s work on a plan to run Mantralaya in two shifts and also promote work-from-home culture in the wake of the Covid-19 situation…we need to change the 10 am to 5 pm office mindset,” Thackeray said.
During a meeting with representatives of Maharashtra State Gazetted Officers Federation and other Mantralaya unions held at his official residence ‘Varsha’, the CM said that Mantralaya employees and officials must be treated as frontline workers and should be given priority in getting vaccinated. “The crowd coming to the secretariat also needs to be reduced,” he said.
On Tuesday, MMR recorded 1,250 cases and 11 deaths pushing the progressive total to 7,16,299 and 19,768, respectively.