Alappuzha: Restoring of order in its workspace has become the priority of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) that used to operate from cramped offices inside a chaotic, cluttered environment with waste heaped up all around.
Keen to shake off its image as an unprofessional, loss-making entity, the Corporation, under new Transport Minister K B Ganesh Kumar, has rolled out a major drive to organize its workspaces by deciding to observe ‘Smart Saturdays’. The project, which requires the employees to be ruthless and remove anything that doesn’t directly serve a function in their office, will be introduced today.
Under the programme, the employees in all KSRTC offices are required to spend the second half of every Saturday for paring down documents, supplies, and stationery to the bare essentials and cleaning up the office premises. A circular, issued by the KSRTC Managing Director Biju Prabhakar, has listed down a few points to be observed as part of the Smart Saturday programme.
As per this, the staff is required to keep the files and registers of different years in separate racks. Redundant documents are to kept for disposal in a separate register by marking the respective file numbers. The office stationery items that have fallen out of use, besides the notices and posters that have piled up over the years, should be removed immediately.
“Make sure that the office stationery including papers are used only as per requirement and no electric gadgets including fans or even lights are switched on unnecessarily,” reads the circular, which also entrusts the respective unit officers to report the progress achieved in this direction to the Welfare Officer (Chief office) every week.
It sets a deadline of January 31 for implementing the instructions listed in the circular and the district officers are to file their reports on Mondays. The Welfare Officer, meanwhile, will be preparing a model of the report to be submitted, and dispatch to all district offices.
Commenting on the initiative, a top KSRTC official said the routine, as part of the weekly shut-down, will help wrap up loose ends and prioritize key tasks for the coming week. “The staff are advised to keep this appointment with themselves and treat the time as sacrosanct. Eliminating the chaos on the table by tossing the old and organizing the files will smoothen the workflow methodically and productively,” he said.
