Junk Furniture in Government offices – why not dispose them?
You go to any government office, you will find the corridors and terrace full of useless discarded furniture, as the following pictures taken in a Central Excise office would reveal.
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| Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured. | Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured. |
You can see carpets, chairs, flower pots, coolers and other assorted furniture. Every year they buy a lot of furniture and the old furniture just accumulates in the corridors and terrace. In fact many of these are good and usable with some minor repairs, but they are allowed to lie and become totally useless before they are disposed of.
The pictures above are from a Central Excise office, but this is replicated in almost all government offices.
Sometime back I accompanied an American businessman to the North Block. There right outside the CBDT Chairman's room, the long corridor was littered with old discarded furniture. I was explaining to the American that the man who sits in that room is “our version of your IRS Chief”. “But what is all this litter?”, he asked me.
Why should we preserve this useless furniture? Can't we dispose them of immediately on their reaching the corridors and terrace? Maybe they can be given at very low prices to the lowly placed employees of the Department, who would be glad to buy them. For example, a Sepoy in the department may happily buy a table for Rs. 50/-.
It has now become a fashion that whenever a new Commissioner or Chief Commissioner takes charge of a new formation, he invariably gets new furniture, thereby creating new junk. But should the junk be preserved?
Senior officers should realise that a single chair in their office can feed about 2000 citizens of this country – the new chair, the new table, the new carpet, is actually acquired by denying basic food to thousands of Indians.
If you are not inclined to avoid the wasteful expenditure, at least ensure that the old furniture is not kept as exhibits in your offices mocking at the poverty of the nation.
A Central Excise officer told DDT " The office ambiance is the least preferred subject in many government offices (except the top boss' room) . The toilets stink and the work place is never cleaned and there is nothing called housekeeping. With cramped work places and inadequate facilities, they have now added a computer also under ACES. There may be a situation now where there are 10 computer terminals and 5 tables in a section."