Awaiting clearance from CMO, ministers yet to set up offices

Each cabinet minister is entitled to have a staff of upto 14 members while the Minister of State can have 12 members. The staff includes a Personal Secretary (PS), OSDs, personal assistants, clerks, drivers, telephone operators, driver, cook etc. Of these, PS and OSDs are key members of the staff and they need to be Class 1 or 2 officials from the government services.

The personal secretary is an administrative head of the minister’s office and is responsible for the day-to-day functioning as well as movement of files within the office, but with no authority to sign on any document.

In case of the BJP, their ministers have been asked to choose PS and OSDs from the list approved by the CMO while for the Sena and the NCP, it is verifying all the names in this category proposed by their ministers. In addition, a private PA from the BJP background will also be deployed with the BJP ministers’ office.

The long process, however, has delayed the appointments and the minsters’ offices have not yet begun working with full strength. The Indian Express spoke to at least three BJP ministers who mentioned that they neither searched for the PS and OSD nor gave letters to anybody as it will be approved by the CMO. Identically, though the Sena and NCP ministers have chosen their PS and OSDs, they are yet to give final letters of appointment.

“The CMO is analysing over 215 applications of officials and the decision of the ministerial staff has to be taken with extreme caution. This is not delay but some time is being taken for full-proof verification,” said a BJP minister.