Desktop computers gather dust in AJK govt offices

Laptops, smartphones have all but replaced utility of computers

MUZAFFARABAD: Along with vases and plastic flowers, desktop computers now seem to have joined the growing number of decorative items adorning desks of senior officials in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government.

“Anyone who wants to work on a computer uses either a laptop or smartphone,” said a top AJK government official, adding, “Desktop computers are installed in offices of top officials but they are now mostly for show only.”

A visit to any government office in AJK shows officials either busy on their phones or laptops – it was not immediately clear whether these devices were government provided or sanctioned.

The government had provided senior officials including secretaries, deputy secretaries, additional secretaries, deputy commissioners, additional deputy commissioners and hundreds of other officers desktop computers in a bid to digitise manual processes. But a visit to these offices shows that a vast majority of these computers is only gathering dust.

A senior government officer, while speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that these massive pieces of office stationary are now little more than paper weights or decoration pieces.

Another DMG group officer said that it was a waste to install desktop computers in the offices of bureaucrats, ministers and other officers since the officials in these offices mostly use their laptops.

He suggested that the government donate these unused desktop computers to local schools and colleges.

Another senior officer explained that officers mostly use computers or their smartphones for receiving or sending official emails. With these tasks easily available on their phones or laptops, the utility of desktop computers had diminished.

“In some offices, the same desktop computers have been seen for the past 10 years and no one has bothered to change them nor are they used by the concerned officers,” said another official at the Civil Secretariat on the condition that he is not named.

The buck is supposed to stop at the top. But when a staffer in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat in Muzaffarabad was asked how many desktop computers were being used by officers in the Secretariat, the official said that he did not have that information.

However, the official said that Prime Minister Farooq Haider, who regularly interacts with people through social media, used his personal laptop to stay in touch using various online platforms.

Meanwhile, an official in the Information Technology Department (IT) expressed his annoyance over the state of affairs and suggested that the government give the unused computers to other departments where they could be used by officials.

The annoyed officer went on to suggest that the government should follow a policy of ‘right man for the right job with right equipment’ and show signs of good governance on the ground.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2017.