Commuting in office vehicles an ordeal for govt staff

RUDRA PANGENI

KATHMANDU: The Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers has asked the Ministry of General Administration to integrate the transportation facility for junior civil servants.

After failing to implement a law endorsed in 2008 to facilitate the movement of junior civil servants to the office and back, the OPMCM assigned the task to the general administration ministry a month ago.

Crammed buses full of civil servants is an everyday affair in Singha Durbar, Section officer at the National Vigilance Centre Humanath Parajuli bemoaned.

Though different government offices have no dearth of vehicles, staffers are bound to commute to work on public buses, he said, adding that more than 85 people have to adjust themselves in a 46-seater bus. There are altogether 27 buses and microbuses, however, seven of them go crammed to different parts of the Capital, while others traverse the city with only a handful of staff, he said.

The vehicles from the Ministry of Home, Ministry of General Administration, Ministry of Information and Communication, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, National Planning Commission and the OPMCM, used for different routes, are often crammed, he added. According to a list submitted by drivers’ association at MoGA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has six vehicles, Supreme Court has four, the Ministry of Foreign and Public Service Commission have three each, the Ministry of Land Reforms has two and the Ministry of Law and the Office of Auditor General have one each, but all of them are used by individual offices.

Despite its normal condition, one vehicle on the OPMCM premises has not been used for over a month, according to a driver at OPMCM.

The general administration ministry has set up a desk to bring all the vehicles into its ambit and manage them in an integrated way.

However, its attempt to seek vehicle details and employees’ names to use the buses from various ministries and other public offices has not materialised as only a handful of offices have coordinated.

MoGA had corresponded to them to forward the details on September 9. According to MoGA desk coordinator Badri Nath Adhikari, the civil servants have lodged several complaints regarding their daily ordeal, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, MoGA spokesperson Begendra Prasad Sharma Paudel said the ministries were reluctant to hand over the vehicles to the MoGA. “ They don’t want other ministries to use the vehicles,” he said.