With more than one-fifth of the government employees testing positive in the last seven days, the state general administration is reeling under extreme pressure to discharge the regular duties even amidst the third Covid wave in the state.

According to top level sources in the state government, more than 60,000 of the nearly 3 lakh employees of the state government is suffering from Covid-19. Not only that, 1000 of the total 4,000 employees who work at the state secretariat in Nabanna have fallen prey to the virus making it impossible for the state administration to function.

In addition to this, nearly 700 of the 2,000 employees at state secretariat or Maharkarn in Central Kolkata are suffering from the virus. Bikash Bhawan, which is one the most recent administrative buildings at Salt Lake, is also in a similar condition. According to sources, more than one-third of the employees have tested positive for Corona.

“The condition is such that in many offices we don’t have the fourth-class staff to open the office and provide us with the basic things needed to run the office. The state government is trying to make arrangements so that people can work from home but in many areas where we need to come to the office. We cannot do it from home,” a senior official of the state finance department said.

The condition of Nabanna is such that the state administration had to sanitise the entire building three times in the last week. “Most of the senior officials are falling sick and they are staying at home. Many works are pending because the concerned officers can’t come to the office because of Covid. Naturally files are getting piled up and we don’t know when everything will be cleared,” the official said.

This is not only in the state secretariat or offices in and around Kolkata but the same picture can be seen throughout the state. According to senior government officials, many offices in the districts had to be closed down temporarily because there was no one. All of the employees have become victims of Covid. “In this condition we have asked to close the office and sanitize it in a regular manner,” another senior official said.

“The situation is very bad and the entire system is on the verge of collapse. Can you believe that the people are not getting their dues and pension even after retirement because there is no officer to clear the files. We are not blaming anybody but if this situation continues then the system will surely collapse,” General Secretary of the Confederation of state government employees Moloy Mukhopadhyay said.