Civil servants have entered a new age of duty: Home is the new office!

Technology is really proving to be the bane of bureaucrats all over the country. No sooner had the central government imposed all manner of biometric monitoring of the whereabouts of the famously laid-back babus than the redoubtable West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has gone one step better and encoded to make sure that even the home is no refuge from the call of duty, mobile phones, RFID cards and other such tagging devices notwithstanding. By insisting that all official residences also become ‘camp’ offices — complete with requisite manpower and communication equipment — the West Bengal chief minister has made it impossible to shirk. No longer will the excuse of being technology-unsavvy be enough to dodge the call of duty. It is a wonder that there has been not even a murmur of discontent about the new working hours. Maybe if other chief ministers follow suit, the penny will drop and some fortuitous ‘procedural’ delays may yet surface.

In any case, a study needs to be conducted now to see if, at least on paper, the Indian bureaucracy is officially the busiest in the world, thanks to a sudden bunch of seemingly indefatigable political masters at the helm. If so, that laurel may be some consolation for the long summer of unrelieved work that appears to lie ahead for the government servants.