Kolkata, May 12 (IANS) A day after being appointed as the new Chief Secretary of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, on Tuesday held a meeting with the other departmental secretaries and there he gave a clear message of not tolerating any lackadaisical approach in implementation of the centrally-sponsored scheme in the state.

An insider aware of the proceedings of the said meeting said that Agarwal, whose role as the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in the recently concluded state Assembly election was highly commendable, also directed the departmental secretaries to bring pace in the implementation of the centrally-sponsored schemes which were either stuck in the midway or were being implemented at extremely slow pace.

“The new Chief Secretary gave a clear direction in the meeting that whatever steps are required from the administrative level to implement these central projects, should be done quickly without wasting any time,” a State Secretariat insider aware of the developments at the meeting said.

The State Secretariat official added that the new Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal had also directed the other departmental secretaries to immediately submit preliminary reports on how the different welfare projects announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government in the party’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ (election manifesto) could be implemented within the shortest possible period.

The new Chief Secretary also reportedly cautioned his fellow bureaucrats in maintaining absolute transparency in implementation of these welfare projects and schemes.

During his first meeting as the Chief Secretary with the other departmental secretaries, Agarwal had also directed that the age-old procedures of the state government employees sitting on the files related to development and welfare projects should be weeded out completely in the new administrative procedure.

“That’s is precisely why the new Chief Secretary, in the meeting on Tuesday, stressed on the importance of larger coordination between the functioning of the different state government departments,” the State Secretariat officials said.

Meanwhile, the new state government under the leadership of West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had decided to transfer Agarwal’s predecessor Dushyant Nariala as the state’s Resident Commissioner to New Delhi.

Bureaucratic circles feel that this is a strategic move to depute Nariala, with long experience in central deputation, as Resident Commissioner to New Delhi, in order to maintain a smooth coordination between the state and the Union governments.

–IANS

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