Audio grapevine

The advent of information technology in government offices sometimes creates amusing situations, as the ways of officers used to across-the-table meetings are difficult to change. Recently, Labour Ministry officials, trying to get to the bottom of a Rs 2,400-odd crore accounting black hole in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (reported in this newspaper), called for a videoconference with the regional PF commissioners concerned. Waiting for the meeting (and video transmission) to begin, the commissioners in their respective conference rooms began to chat on the audio link: the usual babudom cynicisms such as “Kuchh nahin niklega is meeting se…(Nothing will come out of this meeting)”. Then it struck one of the commissioners—their conversation could be heard at Shram Shakti Bhavan. Too late, the additional labour secretary had already heard most of the banter.