Laissez-faire might not be the ideal policy for attendance at work

Nobody can accuse the Indian government of knee-jerk reactions or lack of patience, considering it took 24 years to sack an engineer in the public works department (PWD) for unauthorised leave of absence.

The report that it took the intervention of the relevant central minister to finally hand the absconding official the pink slip — in absentia, it must be noted — also highlights the sheer perseverance and audacity of hope that characterises the collective government psyche.

More so as he is not the only government functionary to go AWOL; examples surface every year. And the chances are that many civil servants’ absence is never reported at all or even discovered, given the general state of attendance in government departments and public sector establishments.

Indeed, that there is no word on the current whereabouts of the hookey-playing PWD engineer also begs the question of whether any concerted effort was made to trace him in the intervening years.

Maybe his department was content to let him follow his — unauthorised and unstated — dreams elsewhere in the country or the world, instead of cruelly bringing him back to his designated place in officialdom.

Sadly, such extended flights of fancy and official laissez-faire towards such free-spirited souls will inevitably end with the implementation of biometric attendance systems.