Work in Govt. agencies in Colombo and Gampaha to be decentralised to ease congestion amidst coronavirus

• President’s Sec. issues circular to 51 institutions directing redeployment of staff to regional offices
• Immigration and Emigration, Registration of Persons Depts., RDA among institutes whose staff will be redeployed
• Head offices told to maintain only minimum number for mandatory work
• Staff to be assigned to offices closest to their residences where possible
• New arrangement meant for public to obtain services more conveniently during period of travel limitations due to COVID-19
• Also aims to ease people and vehicular congestion in Colombo and Gampaha districts 

By Chandani Kirinde

The Presidential Secretariat has directed that operations in several Government institutions in the Colombo and Gampaha districts be decentralised to minimise the inflow of people to cities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secretary to the President P.B. Jayasundera has sent the relevant circular to all Secretaries of Ministries, Chief Secretaries of Provincial Councils, Heads of Department, District and Divisional Secretaries and Chairperson of State Corporations and Statutory Boards.

54 Government institutes coming under the purview of 17 ministries have been earmarked for the decentralisation project.

These include the Registration of Persons Department, Pensions Department, Labour Department, Sri Lanka Export Development Board, Department of Immigration and Emigration, Road Development Authority (RDA) among others. 

The work of the identified institutions will be shifted to regional centres, provincial offices, district offices, district secretariats, project offices etc. Together the identified institutions have a strength of over 15,000 staff members and some them will be delegated work in the regional offices under this program.

The President’s Secretary directed the heads of each institute to redeploy staff to such offices, while maintaining a minimum staff strength at the Head Office only to carry out high-level and mandatory functions and said such redeployment must take into account the possibility of assigning staff to decentralised offices nearest to their residences.

“This work arrangement will facilitate the general public to obtain their services more conveniently during this period of travel limitations, and also ease people and vehicular congestion in the Colombo and Gampaha districts,” the circular said.

Heads of institutions were directed to delegate authority to officers in charge of respective decentralised offices, where necessary, in a lawful manner and also to make use of or introduce digital means such as access to the internet, web applications and software tools to facilitate communication and correspondence between head offices and decentralised offices.

In head offices where a minimum staff has to be maintained, they are required to schedule the staff to attend office in stages so that a restricted number will be present on any given day with 1/3rd staff on average reporting to work on a rotational basis.

The President’s Secretary also informed that additional spending should not be incurred for the work relating to the redeployment process as strict measures have to be undertaken to control public spending.