THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the New Year begins, a personal diary, as a top bureaucrat said, is “the document used by a department or a company to create a first impression”. Government departments, public sector units and autonomous bodies will now have to find a cheaper means to create the ‘first impression’.
With the economy in dire straits, the Finance Department has virtually banned the printing of diaries for the next year.
“The measure has been taken as part of containing non-plan expenditure. Government departments, public sector and autonomous bodies have been directed not to undertake printing of diaries of their own for the ensuing calendar year,” Dr K M Abraham, the additional chief secretary (finance), said.
If necessary, on submission of prior indent, government will print and supply diaries and a suitable price shall be charged for them. “No exemption to this shall be allowed without the explicit sanction of the government,” Dr Abraham said.
The Finance Department has come to the conclusion that departments and public sector units spend “huge amounts of money” to print diaries.
It is said that most of these government bodies order for diaries that cost Rs 150-200 each. “And they print in the hundreds,” a top Forest Department official said.
An internal discussion in the Department had identified printing of diaries one of the many ways in which officials show inflated accounts to spirit away public money.
However, senior officials of various departments were of the view that diaries were a traditional method employed by the department to strike contacts.
