LAHORE, May 22: Punjab Chief Secretary Javed Mahmood has finally allowed the government functionaries to leave their offices at the closing hour, making them heave a sigh of relief.

So far, the employees were required to ensure their presence in their offices exactly at 8am. But there was no time to return as many of them were required to stay till the departure of the chief secretary.

The decision was enforced strictly, transferring or even suspending from service those found late by just a few minutes. An additional secretary who had gone to attend his hospitalised mother after the duty hours was allegedly transferred when he first expressed his inability to return on the same grounds but later followed the instructions.

The unending working hours irked many an official who said that their ‘detention’ was creating a lot of problems for them because they had been robbed of supplementing their meagre income by working part time after the office hours.

Many others in the civil secretariat were complaining that going late cost them dearly in economic terms because this would deny them the official bus service which was cheap and efficient.

According to a directive issued here on Thursday, all the administrative secretaries were advised to ensure that office hours were utilised effectively and efficiently for handling official business, and that the staff of the departments might leave offices by 3pm.

They were also directed to organise official seminars and conferences on the Upper Mall premises of the Management and Professional Development Department instead of hotels and clubs.

The orders of leaving the offices at 3pm made the employees happy in the civil secretariat but also confused many an officer who were not sure as to how they would be able to make their staff perform duty after the office hours in case of emergency. So far there was no such instruction, and the staff could be asked to overstay without overtime under the perception that this was a part of their duty, an official said. —Intikhab Hanif