Building the NEW WORK PLACE post–CORONA : some practical ideas

As we have entered the phased opening of economic and business activity, organisations will have to grapple with how they are going to open, resume and continue their work. Will things be the same as before, given sufficient time ? Has CORONA changed our lives forever - personal and at the workplace ?

In the opinion of this writer, it certainly has changed it forever. We just can't go back to the way we were living/working and inter-acting with each other earlier - just like a person who has a heart stroke and no matter how well he has become and how "recovered" he is declared, his life is not just the same anymore.

We are not only going to keep looking over our shoulder for CORONA but also keep looking ahead to see what new epidemic / pandemic is going to hit us next.

Under these circumstances,  CEOs and HR Heads of organisations have their plate full and have a major role to play in shaping their organisation’s working style & work culture, post–CORONA. 

This article is an attempt to flesh out some of the key areas that they will have to give attention to and be prepared for many, many other actions that will  need to be taken as and when circumstances make them aware that “oh, we have to do something about this also !”.  Even today CORONA is still an unknown quantity and its “after-effects”  are much more so.

The following are the areas that need special and specific attention.

1.   Safety & Hygiene

2.   Work Place Regulations, Culture & Discipline

3.   Other Admin Matters

    SAFETY & HYGIENE

HR Managers will need to look at Safety much more closely, much more physically and much more personally than before. 

The current practice is to employ a young,  junior person who has done some Diploma in Safety as an Asst. Safety Officer for “show purpose” and hire a consultant to tackle/ handle  Factory or Municipal Authorities should some violation or deficiency be found regarding Safety Regulations/Practices !  This attitude and approach will have to go.

HR Heads will have to personally walk their office or factory areas,  and look in every nook and corner for any safety violation or deficiency – e.g. bare electrical wires,  unstable stocking of materials to unsafe heights,  non-wearing of PPE in different areas,  slippery floors,   cluttered walkways & passages and similar.

A major part of safety, in the wake of CORONA,  will also be the cleanliness level and hygiene practices  related to spotlessly clean and non-smelly  toilets/washrooms (Indian industry & businesses have a horrific record in this respect), regular and frequent sanitizing of work place and clean, aseptic and mold /fungus free Canteens / Kitchens / Pantry.

All Canteens / Kitchens / Pantry will need to be repainted with good quality washable paint – some paint manufacturers are even advertising “infection-free paint”. 

Replace all Kitchen equipment that have become worn-out, rusted, half damaged like water-filters, leaking water-coolers, various utensils (coated with years of oil and dust!), ovens, refrigerators and suchlike.

Next, it will be necessary to have regular and frequent cleaning/dusting or vacuum cleaning of  Door Mats, Carpets (if any), regular cleaning/washing of Towels in Wash rooms or their replacement with paper towels / tissue and the like.

Another useful practice to introduce is to ask employees to spend the first 5 minutes of their work-day in physical cleaning of their work area – wiping their table clean of any dust or stain, putting everything that has fallen on the floor in the waste bin, properly arranging all documents/files on the table, putting back things in their proper place.  This will not only spruce up the workplace but also make it hygienic and virus-safe.

See the internet Screen shot, below,  about workstations  - having 400 times more threatening bacteria than toilet seats !!

See another report from the internet :

Source :  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-items-dirtier-than-a-toilet-seat.html

 

Computer Keyboards

Keyboards can contain up to five times as many germs as a toilet seat. It makes sense, since you use them quite often, for work and while browsing the internet. Some people often eat while using the keyboard leading to a variety of bacteria that can make it their home. Be sure to clean your keyboards regularly, including all of the nooks and crannies.

    WORK PLACE REGULATIONS, CULTURE & DISCIPLINE

Employee Pick-up

The number of vehicles employed will have to be increased to be able to maintain safe distance while sitting / standing in the vehicle.

In case of multi-stored office blocks, all occupants should jointly charter buses, from different parts of the city to the office areas,  so that employees are 100 % discouraged from bringing their personal vehicles. 

For commuting during working hours,  circular, shuttle bus services could be set-up with private or state bus service providers e.g. in Nariman Point, Mumbai (with which I am familiar),  you can have 3 shuttle bus services as under :

·         Nariman Point, Fort, VT, Crawford Market, Ballard Estate, Colaba, Nariman Point

·        Nariman Point,  Churchgate, Opera House, Nana Chowk and back (via Marine Drive)

·        Nariman Point,  Churchgate, Opera House, Nana Chowk and back (via Marine Lines)

Tea/Coffee/Water in Paper Cups

All China/porcelain  cups/saucers & crockery should be replaced with  paper cups/glasses and plates as  a  measure of avoiding any disease-spread through unclean cups, glasses or plates,  and even the most important guests need to be served only in throwaway paper cups/glasses/plates. 

Of course,  this will have a cost,  but organisations must avoid the temptation to switch over to plastic cups/glasses (which are cheaper) and be ready to pay the cost of throw away paper cups and glasses.  The cost of someone catching a disease through dirty porcelain/china crockery will be far more than the rupee cost of paper cups/glasses.

Multiple Attendance Recording Machines

To maintain 1 Metre separation in attendance punching queue and yet shorten the total length of the queue, multiple punching machines (Card or Bio-metric) need to be installed and at 2 or 3 separate entrances,  wherever there is provision for the same.  This is particularly true of factories

Staggered Working Hours

Staggering working hours 0800 to 1000  TO  1630 to 1830  will again reduce queue length by splitting it into 5 “entrance times” at 0800, 0830, 0900,  0930 & 1000. 

These are just suggested times/splits  – organisations can choose whatever suits them.  This will, naturally also make road/rail traffic in the city staggered and, hopefully save commuting time.

Staggered Work days

Organisations could also seriously examine staggered working days, letting (or, even, making) employees work, minimum one but preferably 2 days from home or “out of office”  i.e. field-work, customer visit, supplier inspection, campus interview etc.  This will reduce 40 %of attendance load every day.

Stand – up Lunch

Let people eat standing on high-rise tables – this will automatically shorten the time spent over lunch and lunch–hour, thus reducing chances of any infection happening here. Lunch time can then be staggered,  every half hour,  running from 1200 to 1400 hours.

  

More Round Rooms

Whenever there is scope or opportunity, build more round meeting rooms to avoid corners that tend to become and remain dirty and therefore prone to causing infection.

Fewer Almirahs

Reduce number of almirahs to avoid accumulation of dirt/dust inside and outside, below and above.  Barring important statutory documents,  have all papers / files stored in open racks to ensure proper ventilation of files and avoiding of mold accumulation

Less Air-conditioning

Reduce Air-conditioned areas (with employees consent) and/or reduce the number of hours for which air-conditioner is kept running to enable intermittent ventilation and intake of fresh air.  Air conditioned spaces have been identified as being particularly unfriendly in case of virus occurrence.

Fewer Cabins

The fewer the number of closed spaces,  the better the ventilation and lesser the chances of getting infected in case of a virus spread.

Annual Health Check-up

Ensure and strictly enforce,  on penalty of salary cut,  that people get their Annual Health Check-up done regularly, as per schedule,  in the time slot allotted to them.  This will help in early detection of any health issue,  reduce health maintenance costs, and will enable you to negotiate with Mediclaim Insurance companies for lower premiums. Most important, it will improve the health profile of employees.

Enhanced Mediclaim coverage

Double the Mediclaim Insurance Coverage Amount for all employees from present level. Simultaneously,  negotiate with the Insurance companies for a lower premium, as you are doubling their business and also get them to fund the Annual Health Check-up once every 2 years, in this coverage.

    OTHER ADMIN MATTERS

Visitor’s area

Enlarge the visitor’s area to enable  1 Metre distance seating. 

Don’t keep visitor’s waiting. That only increases the need for larger and larger waiting area for them.

Introduce a practice whereby all company employees,  expecting visitors on that day,  inform the reception/security of

·         who they are expecting,

·         approximately, at what time and

·         where they should be escorted to or who should be immediately informed about their arrival (give desk and mobile number)

so that the host can immediately come and take his visitor to the “discussion area”.

Such practice will reduce the waiting time for visitors in the reception area and hence reduce the load and thus reduce the pressure to “enlarge”  the visitor’s area  just because they have to wait interminably for their hosts to come for them.

Kitchen/Pantry  separate and distant from Toilet.

Many stupid architects design them to be next to each other leaving the kitchen/pantry an easy prey to infections from the toilet /wash room area – they ostensibly do this to save “plumbing costs”  by having this wet area next to each other. There couldn’t be a more silly and stupid reason – saving plumbing cots to endanger lives with infection and death.

Auto Flushing Urinals

Dry urinals or Auto flush (laser operated)  urinals,  like at most airports,  to reduce / eliminate touching of flush button.

Auto Operated Sliding Doors

Wherever feasible, have automated sliding doors to reduce handle touching.

Lift Occupancy – 1/3^rd of the specified

Lifts in Office complexes (as also residential towers)  tend to be filled to capacity, sometimes even more.  This habit will have to be changed.  Every Company will have to strictly instruct all its employees to avoid filing lifts more than 1/3^rd of its rated capacity (so only 4 persons must get on, if rated capacity is 12 persons) to be able to maintain required physical distancing)

If your office is in a multi-storied building,  this will need to be discussed and agreed upon by all other occupants/companies.

No cash for expenses – only company pre-loaded cash cards

Many organisations have already done this but this may have to be extended to and by all organisations viz.,  no more giving our Cash for Expenses.  Instead have pre-loaded company cards which will be given for expenses and software can keep itemized, categorized, chronological expense record by the concerned employee (to be identified by Employee No & Unique Signature Code).

This will reduce handling of Cash and thus reduce chances of possible infection due to dirty/soiled/infected currency notes.

The by-product benefit of this will be reduced cash handling which is always desirable.

    THE NEW NORMAL

As you can see,  we are an unchartered territory and what is listed above is only on the basis of what we know or what we can guess,  imagine or extrapolate.  Whenever something unknown develops or occurs suddenly (as they always tend to do)  we will have to improvise, respond and react,  FAST !

This means that we must ensure that we have no problem in our normal working so that we can pay full and undivided attention to the new problems / issues / situations.

What COVID19 has taught is  that there are certain minimum essential actions (or habits)   of  Personal and Public Hygiene that has to be observed irrespective of whether there is an endemic or pandemic or nothing,  at all,  in our environment.  Hence, for example,  not only spitting but any kind of littering in any public space is to be avoided and punished.

  

It has also taught us the importance of

      Infrastructure/up gradation of our entire health  eco-system,

    Proper and regular maintenance  of existing equipment (beds, medical equipment, lifts, ambulances, laboratories),

     Training, training & more training to health staff, not only on their medical responsibilities but also in dealing with patients, their relatives, their anxieties & fears and

   Discipline observance by all of us, i.e. the citizens of Bharat , be it in observance of Corona protection practices (masks, gloves, stay-at-home, hand wash), or respecting road/traffic discipline,  observing queue protocols and so on.

The first  3 points specifically relate to Hospitals and the entire Medical System and those readers or HR Managers who are associated with the Health System (public or private) need to reflect on those.

However,  the 4^th point relates to all of us and HR Heads of organisations must seriously think about taking up this as an additional responsibility of counseling, training and motivating their employees about discipline observance in public life and public places. 

On the face of it,  this may appear to be  matter of an employee’s individual behavior and of no concern to the organisation.  I beg to differ.  Organisations must invest in helping their employees become better citizens ; in my view,  it is axiomatic, that if they become better and responsible citizens,  they will also become better employees.

I would like to propose 2 more actions which, I know,  articulate HR managers and CEOs can eloquently argue that “it is not our business, it is not our responsibility ;  this is the job of the government, this is what we elect them for”.  Well, you will win the argument,  but lose the battle, not only against CORONA (and its various manifestations) but you will also lose the opportunity to make Bharat a great country.

What are these 2 things ?

1.    Every organisation should extend its maintenance responsibility to a 100 Metre radius around its office building or factory boundary.  If you are located in a multi-storied office building,  then this will be the joint responsibility of all the occupants. 

What does this  “maintenance responsibility”  mean ?

It means maintaining this circle of 100 Metre radius such that it is perfect in every respect.  There should be no potholes in the road in this area, not a single tile should be broken or missing on the pavements in this area,  not a piece of scrap, garbage, dirt, filth of any kind, moss should be found in this area. 

All traffic signals should be always working else you must take up responsibility to report failures so that the AMC contractor can come and repair it at the earliest.

Pedestrian Crossing lines and Road  Divider lines should be regularly painted (by you and at your cost) so that they are visible,  the first pre-requisite for them to be observed !

For this you will, obviously need to deploy people to clean the area several times during the day,  provide Garbage Bins (as per Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Standards) at convenient distances. Please do not grudge this additional expenditure nor try to cut corners in this expense,  for the returns for this expense are huge, particularly from the national perspective of saving lives, disciplining people and making  Bharat World Class ! 

You can certainly use your own people, if you have extra persons on your roll who are free to do this additional work ; else, hire some people and thus do one more good of providing some additional employment.

Do not argue nor act, as some of your smart managers will try to advise you – “let us pay the Municipal Safaiwala Rs. 100/- and get them to clean our area every day one more time.”    Such “clever” ideas will simply not work unless you boldly and sincerely take up this responsibility as your own and commit your own funds to see it through.

This is how a great nation is  built – by the collective and voluntary efforts of its citizens and the organisation is also a citizen – a Corporate Citizen !

  

2.    Every organisation should try to ensure that within the above 100 Metre Radius area, if there are any Food Vending Stalls or Shops, then they adhere to international standards of cleanliness and hygiene so that none of your employees or visitors contracts any disease because of eating from such outlets. The things to be taken care of are :

   NO unpacked food item is kept uncovered.  It must be in sealed boxes or covered with mosquito net covering.

   NO utensils (porcelain, steel, aluminum, or any other)  are used to serve food.  All serving plates must be throwaway,  made of paper, Aluminum foil-coated Paper or even Leaves but NO plastic.  This will eliminate washing (and the inevitable dirt/filth  that comes with it).

     Tea/coffee to be served in throwaway cups/glasses (paper or clay but no plastic)

   Any water used by the vendor can and must only be Filtered Water in 20L drums  whose quality you will randomly check once a week to ensure that he/she is not using unfiltered water.

      All the cooking vessels used by him  will only be Stainless Steel  as these are easy to clean and do not have food sticking to them nor do they get blackened or oxidized with use.

  No overnight food will be served.  At closing time, he must either dispose the remaining cooked food (Rice, Dal, Chapati, Vegetables,  Non-veg cooked items, Chutney etc.)  or give them away.  This will be monitored by you, every morning when he opens his shop, by checking that his vessels are all truly and entirely empty.  Half the stomach ailments that people get from eating from such Street Vendors is caused by the serving of previous day’s cooked food,  often mixed with today’s fresh cooking.

    Every employee of the vendor must wear a  head-scarf or cap which fully covers all his hair,  wash his hands with antiseptic water (diluted Dettol or Savlon) before starting work,  puts on disposable gloves which he must budget for 3 pairs to be consumed by every employee every day,  nail cut  for each employee, every 2 weeks and mask on their faces,  till such time as the CORONA  situation remains and thereafter, compulsorily for the Cooks.

Obviously,  doing all the above will mean a certain amount of expenditure which most food vendors will be unable to afford or certainly reluctant to spend. I am proposing that this should be funded by your organisation to ensure that your employees have access to clean and hygienic food.

Please do not be aghast at this suggestion nor ridicule it on the grounds that this is not your responsibility or you are not in business to do good and that your primary responsibility lies on getting a good return for your shareholders’ investment.

First and foremost, most of this can easily be funded by what you are, under law, anyway mandated to do viz.,  CSR.  Many organisations spend their CSR funds on inane things like building lawns and gardens (so that they can put up big signboards saying they have done it) or for one-time eye-check-up and blood donation camps or one-time free notebook distribution to a school. 

Instead,  please consider spending on what has been suggested above.  Such spending will truly be an investment, not merely in the well-being of your employees and people around you but also in the tremendous fund of goodwill you will generate from all your existing and potential customers and stakeholders,  whose value is immeasurable.

This much is certain – we definitely cannot continue as we were doing, prior to CORONA ;  the above changes address some of the issues that the advent of CORONA has painfully highlighted for us.

However,  it also attempts to go beyond merely tackling CORONA–type situations and proposes using this as a trigger to upgrade our country’s business, health and social infrastructure to international standards so that we are not only better geared to face any situation like this in the future but we, also,  transition to a better quality of life.

The choice is yours. You have to make it and live with it.

hemendra k. varma

Mumbai

14 June 2020

 

Re–starting Cities : some suggestions to India’s Major Municipal Corporations

April  16,  2020

Dear Municipal Commissioner

Namaste !

In the next 18 days (at most another week)  it is likely that the lockdown imposed,  because of the COVID19,  will be lifted and life will have to be nursed back to normalcy.

Our large cities are going to face a huge logistical challenge when this lockdown comes - perhaps bigger than the challenges faced in imposing and maintaining this lockdown !

Bearing in mind that there will be an unbearably high level of demand for municipal services to get back to  pre-lockdown levels,  and the fact that monsoon is soon expected,  just 6 to 8 weeks away,  I have formulated a list of possible steps you can take now itself to prepare yourself for the demands that will be  placed on you and your staff,  post  May 3, 2002.

The same is enumerated below.  I hope you will find the suggestions helpful in this task.

You have all been doing a very difficult and heroic task since March 25, 2020  and I wish you all a high level of energy, personal safety and good health in the even more monumental task that lies ahead.

hemendra k. varma

A Concerned Citizen

Re–starting Cities : some suggestions to India’s Major Municipal Corporations

Sl No	Proposed  Action  Plan	Remarks	Reasons / Benefits
1	Immediately launch a drainage cleaning drive, particularly in the water-logging prone areas,  to avoid flooding during the monsoons which is just  8 weeks away.	In view of the lockdown & short time available now,  forego the quotation/ tender process and simply award the work to 2 or 3 contractors on last year’s rates.  Pass a special resolution or ordnance for this purpose.	With the lockdown in force,  this work can be carried out speedily without any disturbance from traffic & people on the road. At this time,  it will also give employment (and, hence, money) to hundreds and thousands of daily wage-earners,  which is the need of the hour.
2	Immediately  implement a 15 % cut in water supply for April,  15 % in May and 20 % in June to be reviewed and re-adjusted at the end of June depending on Monsoon performance.	This will give a saving of approx. 2 days water in April and 4.5 and 6 days in June giving a buffer of approx. 12 days water supply should monsoon play truant.	We are already suffering from the CORONA Virus ; imagine how much more difficult life will become if people have to face a water shortage, should Monsoons get delayed this year ? Hence this cut is suggested as an ADVANCE  measure of abundant caution. Please avoid temptation to become popular by NOT making a water cut – remember people will eventually hail you for your caution even though,  temporarily,  they may criticize you.
3	Utilize these 18 days (or more)  to work on a war footing to tend to all known and visible pot-holes to avoid the inevitable car accidents and vehicle damage that takes place during monsoons	It will be much easier to do it now owing to completely “traffic-free”  road availability. However, the key is to start the work immediately for which, once again Municipalities will have to  forego the quotation/ tender process and simply award the work to 2 or 3 contractors on last year’s rates.  Pass a special resolution or ordnance for this purpose.	This will not only make driving easier but also save lives as so many accidents, particularly of 2 and 3-wheelers happen when they speed over “unseen potholes” during monsoons. Also there will never be such an ideal situation to carry out these works because of the free roads these days.

4	Use this time to clean –up, disinfect and sanitise all place of tourist interest in the city,  particularly through soap–wash of all statues and monuments, which always tend to get ignored.	the key is to start the work immediately for which, once again Municipalities will have to  forego the quotation/ tender process and simply award the work to 2 or 3 contractors on last year’s rates.  Pass a special resolution or ordnance for this purpose.	When we emerge form this COVDI19 Lockdown,people will not only be able to heave a sigh of relief bt get a much cleaner and aesthetically beautiful city which will work like an antidote for uplifting the grim mood that people are living in, these days.
5	Institute a rule, that all Street Hawkers  selling  Food / Snacks  must use ONLY  Stainless Steel Containers or Cooking Vessels except for TAWA. A generous time of 12 months to implement this directive can be given to all such hawkers.	Stainless steel vessels and utensils are much easier to clean ; as  a result a reasonable scrub-wash removes all old food which otherwise tends to cling to other kinds of containers and is a home for bacteria, worms and eventual disease.	With the much heightened  awareness about the importance of personal hygiene and food cleanliness because of the CORONA Virus,  people will be much more open to implementation of this measure today than ever before. Of course this will raise their cost of operation and,  hence, their prices but this is a necessary COST that we have to bear to save future generations from  diseases caused by poor hygiene. In the long run, business will only increase as people get confidence about their cleanliness ; they will also get increasing patronage from foreign tourists who otherwise do NOT eat at such Street outlets.
6	Street Hawkers and all Sweet (Mithai)  Shop Staff must wear Head Covering and gloves ; to be implemented within 3 months of such declaration.	Regular inspection by Municipal Staff with on-the-spot fines to be levied for violation plus “Violation-photograph” and sticker put mentioning Violation 1, 2, 3 etc.  On 4th violation shop to be shut for 1 week	Will drastically improve Hygiene and significantly bring down infection / stomach ailments caused by eating street food. Will upgrade the city’s food outlets to international standards.

7	Hawkers must only serve in disposable plates – Leaves, Mud/Clay, paper or Recyclable Plastic ; to be implemented within 3 months of such declaration.	Regular inspection by Municipal Staff with on-the-spot fines to be levied for violation plus “Violation-photograph” and sticker put mentioning Violation 1, 2, 3 etc.  On 4th violation shop to be shut for 1 week	Today, re-usable plates are washed in the same dirty water kept in a large bowl or bucket and used for re-serving to the next customer – it is a horribly unhealthy and unhygienic system This measure will help to avoid the above and will upgrade the city’s food outlets to international standards.
8	Hawkers must keep only Filtered water Jars with them which will be checked every 3rd day plus 1 random check every week to ensure that is it indeed filtered. This should  be implemented within 3 months of such declaration.	This is not difficult to implement but certainly involves a cost which the hawker and/or the customer has to bear for his own health safety. Municipality has to ensure that “it is really filtered water that is being used” by making regular and frequent sample checks with heavy on-the-spot fines for violations. The supply of this filtered water can be arranged from IRCTC which sells at a much cheaper rate than private bottlers and a special rate for hawkers can be worked out with IRCTC which will be getting a huge volume of business.	Water-borne disease are the single largest cause of all stomach ailments and this move will,  therefore,  greatly eliminate the same which will lead to tremendous savings in medical cist, though the same will accrue to different segments of society and not to the hawker. However, in view of Proposal No 5, above,  eliminating the use of re-usable plates,  the “water-requirement”  of the vendor itself will do down substantially and hence the cost increase for them may not be huge.

9	Municipality must provide adequate numbers of large waste segregation Bins (Food waste, Paper & Plastic, All other categories)  in all Food Court and Food Vending Areas.	The bins being used today by different vendors are extremely filthy, of varying sizes and in varying states of collapse ! Municipality should provide a standard, colour coded bins and incur the capital cost for the same.	One of the major reasons for garbage on the streets and footpaths in our city is the woeful lack of garbage bins at reasonable distance.  Each Metro must aim for ONE set of 3 Garbage Bins (Floor, Paper/Plastic & Others) at every 100 Metre length of Road  and Multiple sets at Food Courts / Food vending areas / Parks etc.,  depending on volume of people-traffic in that area. Provision of the garbage bags will give authorities the moral right to enforce “No littering  Fines”  as to day people rightly protest – “where should I throw the garbage if not on the street ?”
10	Cleaning (Physical sweeping, wet wiping and white-wash) and thorough disinfection of Municipal Schools. This can also be mandated for all Private Schools who should be asked to self-certify that they have done this and, then random checks carried out on at least 30 % of such schools.	This is highly important in view of the COVID19 outbreak and will give parents a sense of confidence in sending their children to Municipal Schools	Will ensure a minimum level of cleanliness and hygiene in the schools which can become the new benchmark that schools need to adhere to and maintain.
11	Thorough cleaning of Municipal School Toilets and replacement of broke damaged accessories where necessary	Use COvid19 donation funds for this as it is essential to fight COVID19 when children come back for school.  Ask Corporates who are  manufacturing Toilet Accessories to donate their products as part of their support to fighting COVID19.	This is one of the major reasons why parents DO NOT send their children to Municipal Schools, especially those with girl-child ; having  clean and hygienic toilet facilities will significantly reduce this barrier

12	Clearing of all Routine and Standard Requests for various permissions	This will save you a huge crowd of citizens coming to your offices whenever they open asking “what happened to my request ?”	This will be welcomed by citizens and many of these can be done digitally, by e-mail etc. for which a limited number of staff can be called in for work immediately.
13	Issuance of Reminders of Non – payment of Municipal Taxes by Housing Societies and Individuals	Will put the onus on the citizen/society to make their payments and give them time to organize for the same.	Many of these can be done digitally, by e-mail etc. for which a limited number of staff can be called in for work immediately.
14	Clearance of papers on desk	Do it NOT by writing a Note and forwarding it to the next Officer but do it in Joint meetings every day, where all departments are present and clarifications given there and then and appropriate decision taken jointly.	This new way of working will develop a healthy sense of camaraderie and team-work and, over a period of time,  can become the norm which will greatly speed-up  paper-work disposal.

We will be happy to provide you any clarification or any assistance you may need for fleshing out the details of the above proposals.

(Hemendra K. Varma)      

16  April  2020