After a gap of eight months, government employees on election duty returned to their respective departments. And as many of themchose to remain absent or take leaves to merge with the weekend, attendance in various departments fluctuated between 70- 75 per cent.

“Out of our 225 employees , over 200 were on election duty. The voters campaign followed by Lok Sabha elections, which were again followed by voter registration drives and the assembly polls kept us busy for over eight months. In fact, all of us spent our Diwali working in offices. As a result over 25 per cent of our officials are on leave or have remained absent,” said Pradeep Patil, foodgrain distribution officer. The department had also brought down the number of new ration cards to be issued from 8,500 per month to 1,500 per month. Patil said that reaching the earlier benchmark remains his priority after the gap.

While over 32,000 employees of the state government were on election duty on October 13, the number was 150 officers per constituency making it to over 3000 on the counting day.

“10 per cent of our staff is absent today,” said S V Thakre, organisational method officer, Animal Husbandry .

“The day the code of conduct is made effective, our work starts suffering for the simple reason that approvals, completion of tenders has to be halted on the very same day. The moral code of conduct is now over and we plan to get back to pending constructions of bridges, buildings and approvals of new projects and so on,” said a PWD official.