90 per cent of IAS officers delay files, do not work: CM Kejriwal

New Delhi: Launching an attack on the bureaucracy, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that he feels development was “stuck at the secretariat” as ninety per cent of the IAS officers “do not work.” On the bureaucrats’ alleged “objection” to the regularisation of contractual workers, Mr Kejriwal said if Delhi had full statehood, his government would regularise all the contractual employees within 24 hours.

Mr Kejriwal, while speaking at a function organised to felicitate pensioners of the Power department, alleged that the IAS officers “obstructed files” of development works. “Ninety per cent of them (IAS officers) do not work and hold up the files,” he said, citing his proposal for the regularisation of contractual employees, as chairman of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation.

“When I proposed regularisation of contractual employees, all the officers opposed me. They said if regularised they won’t work. I said, if this is the logic then all the IAS officers should be ad-hoc because they do not work,” he said.

Referring to the cashless health service for the power department pensioners, the chief minister said that he has learnt that officers were causing obstacles for the scheme. “I sometimes feel that the development was stuck up at the secretariat,” he said.

Mr Kejriwal said the labour department has been asked to prepare a notification for regularising contractual employees. “I have asked the labour department to sent the draft notification for LG’s approval. If he obstructs it, they (contractual employees) will give him a befitting reply (Khaat Khadi Kar denge),” Mr Kejriwal said. Talking about his government’s proposal to regularise guest teachers, passed recently in Delhi Assembly, he said that the matter was now in Lieutenant Governor’s (LG) hands. “We have sent the file to the L-G. Now, it is between the LG and the guest teachers and they can settle it out themselves,” he said.

Mr Kejriwal also said that his government was working to implement equal pay for equal work.