WFH-II model for central government officials likely

Central government employees may resume hybrid functioning following the surge in coronavirus cases in the last few weeks. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has informally alerted department secretaries to restrict office attendance to ensure adequate distancing in offices and enforce compliance of Covid-19 appropriate behavior. All ministries have been also asked to curtail visitors, ET has learnt.

Secretaries have been advised to review the attendance system of staff in ministries and restrict it to check the spread of infections. Officials exempted from attending office may be asked to work from home, DoPT has said. Every ministry had allowed 30% staffers on rotation since the outbreak of the pandemic but in the last few months almost the entire staff had returned to their physical workstations.

Several ministries are at present allowing work from home option to whoever is asking for it due to exposure or comorbidity. Officials said they would relook at the existing mechanisms in the light of the DoPT advice.


An Empowered Group of Secretaries last week held a meeting to reexamine the elaborate work from home template developed last year amid the lockdown to enable government functioning with staggered staffing models, but no final decision has been taken.

Last May, DoPT had drawn up a draft WFH protocol for bureaucrats with flexi timing schedules, protocol for handling of confidential/classified documents, disposal of VVIP references and ensuring confidential of government communication in electronic mode, after consultations with several ministries.

The key idea is to rework working formats to ensure office productivity is not hampered or compromised even if a considerable number of employees operate from home. Amid the lockdown, ministries had shifted to a 10 to 5 work from home schedule with clear targets and timelines for file disposal. The National Informatics Centre worked on full throttle then to allow virtual private network access to hundreds of staffers to enable government functioning on e-office mode.