A bizarre order issued by the Haryana Education Minister, Mahipal Dhanda, is doing the rounds in the administrative corridors of the state. The order lays down which bureaucrats in his department need to decide what. The responsibility of each one from who will post a Group A officer to who will be writing off a lost typewriter has now been fixed through a delegation order.
There are five annexures in it, each containing a checklist of decisions related to the department to be taken by a rung of the bureaucracy, which form the crux of the order.
The copies of the order were sent to the Governor’s office, the Chief Minister’s Office, the Chief Secretary, and every branch officer and superintendent in the Directorates of Secondary and Elementary Education.
The order, issued on August 12, was circulated on Aug 19 by the Superintendent Administration on behalf of the Principal Secretary, School Education Department.
Annexure A is the Chief Minister’s list detailing subjects on which the CM has to take the decision. These include appointments, promotions, dismissals, and prosecution sanctions of Group A officers; framing of new service rules; and any case involving a “major question of policy.”
The order also clearly shows some serious business at the top, like Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) of administrative secretaries and directors general and cases where the minister and his administrative secretary simply disagree.
Annexure B belongs to the minister himself. He will make decisions related to transfers of Group B, C, and D staff; administrative approval for building works and equipment purchases above Rs 10 lakh; and permission for officers to write books.
It also includes the list where decisions are to be taken regarding taking over private educational institutions, declaring government girls’ schools co-educational, and naming government or aided institutions after defence and paramilitary martyrs, freedom fighters, or “eminent personalities.”
Then comes at the end the final catch-all line: “Generally, all matters related to educational institutions of the Government.”
Below that lies Annexure C, for the Additional Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary or Commissioner-cum-Secretary — financial irregularities up to Rs 10 lakh, extension of service beyond 55 years for senior officers, sanction for foreign travel by Class-I and Class-II officers, and references to the Haryana Public Service Commission.
Annexure D goes to the Secretary or Special Secretary — medical reimbursements up to Rs 3 lakh at hospitals outside the approved list, appeals against penalties imposed by field officers, permission for non-gazetted officers to travel abroad on personal visits, and NOCs for passports for Group A and B officers.
The smallest cases fall to the Joint Secretary or Additional Secretary under Annexure E—write-offs of lost government money or stores up to Rs 25,000, casual leave for the Under Secretary, and even requests from non-gazetted staff to change their name or date of birth in service records.
Interestingly, the order also spells out a fallback chain for urgent matters when the minister remains out of Chandigarh. In this situation, cases can be cleared by the Additional Chief Secretary or Principal Secretary, and if that officer too is away, by the Secretary or Special Secretary concerned, with the file shown to the minister on his return “for information and orders as he may deem fit.”
A clause in the order also clarifies that no decision can later be challenged in a representation, inquiry, or court merely on the ground that the file did not receive approval from the prescribed authority.
The order clearly supersedes every previous order issued in the department regarding delegation of power “from time to time.”
An official of the School Education Department points out that the order is meant to remove confusion over who has the authority to decide what. He says that every category of case now has one officer clearly marked against it, so there’s no scope for confusion or delay.
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