By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 18 May: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami this morning conducted a surprise raid on the Road Transport Office, here. During the surprise inspection, the Chief Minister found that while the general public was present at the RTO office since 9 a.m. to get work related to their vehicles done, over 80 percent of the employees had not turned up till 10:30 a.m. Among those not present in the office by 10:30 a.m., was RTO Dehradun, Dinesh Chandra Pithoi. 
Taking serious note of the situation, Chief Minister Dhami ordered Pithoi’s suspension and directed Secretary, Transport, Arvind Singh Hyanki to take strict action against those found absent.
The CM arrived quite early at the office and, to his surprise most of the employees did not turn up till 10:30 a.m. He also spoke to the people who had queued up at various counters to get their work done and came to know that a large number of them had been waiting in the queue since 9 a.m.
The CM then called for the attendance register and found that only a small number of employees had signed the attendance register by that time. Angered by this, the Chief Minister ordered suspension of RTO, Dehradun, Dinesh Chandra Pithoi. Besides this, he also issued instructions to Secretary Hyanki to take strict action against all the employees not found present during the inspection, including docking their salaries.
Later, at the Secretariat, Chief Minister Dhami also held a meeting with Secretary to CM, R Meenakshi Sundaram, Secretary, Transport, Arvind Singh Hyanki and Transport Commissioner Ranbir Singh Chauhan and discussed further action. Later, formal orders suspending Pithoi were also issued this evening.
Meanwhile, later today, the suspended RTO Dinesh Chandra Pithoi met Secretary, Transport, Arvind Hyanki and claimed that he had in the morning gone to the Vikasnagar office because bidding for sale of vehicles was scheduled there at 1 p.m. and by no means could he be considered absent from duty. He further claimed that 21 out of 29 employees had already reached the RTO in Dehradun by 10:05 a.m.
While the surprise raid by the CM at the RTO is bound to spread some fear among the government employees of various departments and for a while they are likely to start reaching their respective offices in time, it needs to be remembered that such surprise raids have been conducted in the past too at various government offices by either the CM or a minister. Apart from sending a strong message amongst the employees, these hardly resolve the basic issues in the government offices related to corruption or negligence towards duty. Some other system needs to be put in place that can ensure a real change in the mindset of the employees and a positive work culture.
