West Bengal chief secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal has directed all state departments to dispose of inter-departmental references and communications within seven working days, in a move aimed at speeding up decisions on government schemes and reducing administrative bottlenecks.
The direction was issued by the chief secretary’s office and places responsibility on departmental secretaries to ensure that pending matters are processed within the specified timeframe. The order is intended to address delays in communication between departments that can hold up decisions related to government programmes.
Agarwal has also asked departmental secretaries to regularly monitor pending references and communications. Matters that remain unresolved are to be brought to the chief secretary for intervention and resolution, according to the report by the Times of India.
Inter-departmental references are used when a proposal, scheme or administrative decision requires inputs, approval or action from more than one government department. Delays at this stage can slow the movement of files and defer decisions even after a programme has been announced or approved in principle.
The directive therefore focuses on the administrative stage preceding implementation. It does not, in the information available, announce a new government scheme or alter the eligibility, funding or delivery terms of any existing programme. Instead, it sets an internal deadline for departments to respond to communications and references connected with government work.
The chief secretary’s order also creates an escalation mechanism for cases that cannot be resolved at the departmental level. Departmental secretaries are expected to identify such matters through regular monitoring and refer them to Agarwal so that pending issues can be examined and resolved at the state’s highest administrative level.
For residents, the effect of the directive will depend on how consistently departments apply the deadline and whether unresolved references are actually escalated. The source report does not specify the number of pending matters, the departments currently facing the largest backlog or penalties for missing the seven-working-day limit.
The order comes as a procedural intervention to improve coordination across the state administration. Its immediate focus is on clearing pending communications and ensuring that decisions related to government schemes do not remain stalled because of delays between departments. Departmental secretaries will now be responsible for monitoring the process and escalating unresolved matters to the chief secretary.
