Centre: No plan to ask staff to report to work on December 25

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday denied any plan to ask its staff to mandatorily report to work on December 25, a gazetted holiday in view of Christmas, but said all ministries and departments may conduct their own events to mark former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee's birthday as ' Good Governance Day'.

"The personnel ministry is not contemplating issuing any formal circular to all Central ministries and departments on how to celebrate Good Governance Day... it is up to the individual ministries and departments to celebrate it as they like," minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh told TOI.

An officer, however, remarked that the very fact that individual ministries and departments were expected to organize functions on Good Governance Day meant that babus would be left with little choice but to report to work on December 25.

Even so, parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday insisted that no one would be forced to observe December 25 as 'Good Governance Day'. At the same time, he added that all Central ministers would attend public functions in their respective states and all MPs shall visit their constituencies to mark the occasion.

A senior home ministry official shared with TOI that while Union home minister Rajnath Singh was set to visit Lucknow on December 25 to preside over public functions to mark Good Governance Day, MoS Kiren Rijiju and H P Chaudhary would do the same in Arunachal Pradesh and Banaskantha (Gujarat) respectively.

Sources in the government indicated that the department of reforms and public grievances (DARPG), which comes under the personnel ministry headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was contemplating putting out advertisements in national and regional dailies on December 25, conveying the government's message of "good governance" to all citizens.

Naidu said people were free to celebrate December 25 in "whatever manner they like". Yet, with entities like department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) announcing a function-cum-seminar between 10.45 am and 5 pm on December 25, babus in the department may not have much choice but to attend the function where their minister, Ravishankar Prasad will be the chief guest.