Wearing ID cards must for government staff

Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department Secretary S Swarna has written to all department heads, district collectors, district judges, chief judicial magistrates, and secretary of TN Public Service Commission, reiterating the previous orders passed by the State about provision of identity cards and required details that should be featured on them besides reiterating that the state’s employees should wear them during working hours. 

The communique stated that the rules of compulsory wearing of identity cards had been in vogue for long. A notification issue in 2004 had guidelines with a model identity card which had the details of the employees to be typed in English. A subsequent notification issued in 2005 instructed the department heads and district collectors to redesign the identity cards as bilingual to feature employee’s name and designation in English and Tamil. 

Another notification which came later in 2013 had reiterated that the guidelines issued and government orders passed with regard to identity cards should be followed in letter and spirit. The letter also advised all the recipients to provide necessary advice to their staff and sought compliance to it. Sources indicated the said notification from PARD dated Sept 5 is a routine communication. It is pertinent to note that the timing of the notification gains prominence as an indefinite stir had been called for by the JACTO-GEO. 

The charter of demands by the protesters includes the demand for restoration of the old pension scheme while scrapping the contributory pension scheme and implementation of the seventh pay commission recommendations besides granting interim relief until rollout. The stir, which was launched as planned by a section of employees, had a bearing on the state Secretariat as some went on a wildcat squat protest in front of Namakkal Kavignar Maligai on a day when Madurai bench of the MHC sought the representatives to appear before it on Sept 16. Following the strictures passed by the court, the stir was called off.