Curtail In Staff Attendance: 75% For OPSC & OSSC, 50% For Other Govt Offices

In view of rising cases of COVID-19 and detection of the Omicron variant in the State, the Odisha government has decided to curtail the staff strength in offices for the month of January. 

As per an official release, all the departments of the State government and sub-ordinate offices will function with 50 per cent strength of employees from January 7 to January 31, 2022. 

However, offices of all recruiting institutions like Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC), Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) and Odisha Subordinate Staff Selection Commission (OSSSC) will function at 75 per cent of their strength of employees.

"The Departments/ Head of offices may decide the manner of selection of employees who will attend Office. However, the essential offices/services such as SRC and CISDMA offices, Police, Fire Services, Health Services, Municipal services etc, Office of the State Election Commissioner and all offices connected with the conduct of elections to the Three Tier Panchayat bodies shall be exempted from this order and shall function in full strength," the official release read.

All the offices have been directed to strictly follow the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID infection. "In case of detection of any COVID case among the office employees, the concerned office will follow the protocol issued by the Government vide letter No. 17290/Gen, Dt. 23.07.2020," it read.

"It may be ensured that the Officers/staff, who are not assigned duty on roster, should work from home with VPN provided to them for attending the regular & pending works. They must be available on telephone at all times to attend to any office work of urgent nature, at short notice. The employees with disability & pregnant women employees may be exempted from attending office and working from home. During this period no employees are allowed to leave headquarter without the prior permission of the authority," it added.