By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar

Panaji, Apr 11 (IANS): Three surprise visits to government offices by newly-elected representatives, two ministers and an opposition MLA, and subsequent suspension of more than a dozen employees for being slack at the workplace have now created a stand-off of sorts between the bureaucracy and politicians.

The situation on the ground, however, would tend to go against the bureaucrats.

The Goa Government Employees Association is now demanding a legal explanation for the suspension of several government employees after they were found missing from their desks during the visits by Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte last month.

"The Goa Government Employees Association is not averse to carrying out surprise inspections to enforce attendance in time so as to deliver timely services to the public. However, please note that suspension is not an appropriate action or punishment for late attendance on one or two occasions," the association wrote to the Chief Secretary, seeking a response from him.

Association president John Nazareth, quoting from the Central Civil Service Rules of 1965, said that a government employee could be suspended for late attendance only when there was no casual leave to his/her credit.

"These actions are completely unfair," Nazareth told IANS, as it leaves a stigma against the bureaucrat.

Under pressure to deliver, ministers in the BJP-led coalition government, accompanied by media personnel, started off with surprise visits to offices functioning under the aegis of their respective ministries.

Goa Forward MLA and Water Resources Minister Vinod Palienkar was the first to start the "surprise raid" spree, when on the afternoon of March 21, he walked into departmental offices in Panaji and at the Porvorim suburb only to find several staffers sleeping and others idling about.

"Some of them were idle. Some were sleeping. I had warned them of action if such things are repeated," Palienkar said.

Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte was next to conduct a surprise visit at the Deputy Collector's office in Mapusa town, around 10 km north of Panaji.

His visit revealed that more than a dozen government employees were missing. "The two-day suspension I had ordered is a warning. If this continues, the punishment will be more stringent," he said.

On Saturday, Congress MLA Dayanand Sopte walked into a shocked audience at the Parsem village panchayat office to discover the panchayat secretary missing and heaps of garbage strewn around the office.

"I have warned them and a complaint will also be made to the Directorate of Panchayats against the people working there. People were in queue but the secretary was missing. There was no place for the people to sit and there was so much litter," Sopte said.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has also already requested "lethargic" government servants to opt for a new voluntary resignation scheme, rather than continue in service, which has been announced in his recent budget speech.

Goa, which is India's smallest state, incidentally has one of the highest government servant-to-residents ratio with over 50,000 bureaucrats for a resident population of 1.5 million.