State directs officials to keep in touch with Delhi

Gandhinagar, April 30: The Keshubhai Patel government has directed the heads of its various departments to visit Delhi at least once a month...

Gandhinagar, April 30: The Keshubhai Patel government has directed the heads of its various departments to visit Delhi at least once a month and establish a rapport with senior officials of different Central ministries to elicit relevant details concerning Gujarat about any policy decisions taken by the Centre from time to time.

The government has also directed the its Delhi-based Resident Commissioner to send, on regular basis, detailed notes to the heads of various departments, apprising them of the impact the policy decisions taken by the Centre may have on Gujarat, so that local officials could keep track of the progress of policies and the like.

The directive is part of a government resolution (GR) issued by the general administration department (GAD) recently. The purpose of issuing the directive is to guard Gujarat’s interests against any adverse impact the new policies being formulated by the various central ministries may have on Gujarat, the government resolution states.

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The government resolution also says that secretaries, additional chief secretaries and principal secretaries of the government departments concerned should also get in touch with the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members elected from Gujarat and seek their co-operation on policy issues which may relate to Gujarat’s interests so that the best interests of the state could be attended to as soon as possible.

Since most of members of the two houses are inducted in consultative committees of the various central ministries, the secretaries and additional chief secretaries of the state could elicit relevant information from them about policy matters that may involve the state’s interests.

After his Delhi visit, each of the heads of various state government departments will have to submit a detailed note to the additional chief secretary in the general administration department, the government resolution says.