Govt depts told to work with skeleton staff

Remaining employees will continue to work from home

LAHORE: In view of the increasing number of coronavirus cases, the government departments have been instructed, once again, to work with skeleton staff.

As per an official letter, it was stated that for offices opening with skeleton staff the administrative secretaries should re-determine their essentially required staff to attend office in view of the alarming increase in the number of Covid-19 cases. It instructed the authorities concerned not to call unnecessary staff to attend the offices. It further stated that the remaining staffers will continue to work online as already directed.

The government had initially allowed departments on April 14 to resume office work. However, even then the administrative secretaries were ordered to open offices with only skeleton staff by the Punjab chief secretary.

The step was taken to allow the government offices, to partially resume work to allow the financial activities to gradually start in the province. Other than 13 administrative departments, all were closed amidst the coronavirus threat from March 23, the day when the lockdown was imposed in the entire province.

A government official said that despite the instructions to reopen offices with skeleton staff, many offices started calling staff members who were not in the initial skeleton staff list. Keeping in view the situation, the instructions were again issued to cut down on unnecessary staff.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2020.