Times News NetworkKanpur: District magistrate Jitendra Pratap Singh conducted surprise inspectionat the Lower Ganga Canal (Kanpur Division) office on Tuesday. Executive engineer, four assistantengineers, three clerks and an irrigation overseer (Sinchpal) found absentduring the crucial monsoon season.Taking strong exception to the absence of almost the entire engineeringstaff at a time when continuous monitoring of canals and embankments iscritical, the district magistrate ordered deduction of one day’s salary of staffers. He also soughtseparate explanations from all the absentee officials.The executive engineer has been directed to submit his reply within threedays explaining why he and all the assistant engineers were absent from theoffice without prior permission during the monsoon period and howmonitoring of canals and embankments was being ensured in their absence. No record ofsanctioned leave or prior permission for their absence was available.The district magistrate observed that with river and canal water levelslikely to rise during the monsoon, round-the-clock monitoring of canals,embankments, bridges, culverts and drainage systems is essential to preventbreaches and tackle erosion. The inspection also brought to light glaring lapses in office discipline.Assistant Engineers were not signing the attendance register regularly,while no movement register was being maintained to record field visits byofficers.The district magistrate directed the department to immediately introduce amovement register in which every officer and employee leaving the officewould record the time of departure, destination, purpose of visit and timeof return. He also instructed all gazetted officers to sign the attendanceregister daily.
