NOTES ON OFFICE PROCEDURE

(AIDS TO OFFICE
MANAGEMENT)

PART-1
 THE GOOD ADMINISTRATOR
 willingness to assume responsibility.
 Demonstrated growing power – a steadily enlarging ability to deal
with more problems, more varied problems and more diverse people.
 A good administrator is one with a strong bent towards action.
 A good administrator needs to be upto a point, a good listener;
beyond this point he needs to be a good initiator of that to which he
listens.
 A good administrator is one who has learned how to be unusually

effective with people.

 A kindred point is that a good administrator is one who prefers to
have around him the ablest people he can find.
 A good administrator uses his institutional resources rather than
relying too heavily on himself.
 A good administrator is one who aims at effectiveness and avoids
using power or authority for their own sake.
 A good administrator has self-confidence that enables him readily to
confess ignorance and personal fault.
 A good administrator does not discourage, but positively welcomes,
reports of troublesome things handle carefully.
 A good administrator is a team-worker.
 A good administrator tirelessly pursues means of improving
administration of all for which he is responsible. He is hospitable to
suggestions for improvement.
OFFICE MANAGEMENT
 Hours of Attendance
1. The normal hours of attendance for the offices of the Government
of India located in Delhi are as follows:
Group –A: Ministries and Departments of the Govt. of India as
specified in Schedule I of the Government of India (Allocation of
Business) Rules, 1961.
 All working days 9.00 AM to 5.30 PM
 Lunch Interval 1.00 PM to 1.30 PM
Group –B: All other offices of the Government of India
 All working days 9.30 AM to 6.00 PM
 Lunch interval 1.30PM to 2.00 PM
 Common Rules

. Any member of the staff may, however, be required to work
outside office hours if the state of work in the office so demands.
 Half a day’s casual leave is to be deducted from a Government
servant’s casual leave account for each day’s late attendance.
 Late attendance upto an hour on not more than two occasions in a
month may be permitted by the competent authority if he is satisfied
that it is due to unavoidable reasons.
 Half a day’s casual leave in the forenoon or afternoon may be
allowed to a Government servant on prior application.
 The practice to leave office early with permission should be
discouraged.
 Attendance Register
(i) Arrival -The Attendance Register in form S.37 will be maintained
in each Section. Every Member of the staff should, on arrival, enter in
ink clearly his/her initials together with the time of arrival against
his/her name in the relevant dated column against the letter ‘A’.
 The register should be initialed by the Section Officer (or, in his
absence, by the senior most Assistant present) at the bottom of the
dated column on the last page for the current month, in token of
scrutiny.
 At 9.10 or 9.40 AM, as the case may be, the register should be sent
to the Branch Officer. Any person arriving thereafter should mark
his/her attendance in the register in the Branch Officer’s room.
 (ii) Departure- while leaving office, every number of the staff
should record his/her initials with the time of departure in the space
against the letter ‘D’ opposite his name.
 Recording of non attendance
The Following Abbreviations used by the Section Officer (i) CH-
Compensatory Holiday
(ii) CL- Casual Leave
(iii) L-Leave of any other kind
(iv) A- Absence without leave or permission (This entry should be
made in pencil-when leave of any kind is sanctioned, the appropriate
abbreviation as indicated above should be substituted in ink.)
(v) RH-Restricted Holiday.
 Late Attendance or leaving early:
 if a person is permitted to attend late or to leave early as entry to
the effect will be made by the supervisor in the remark column.
 Any such permission for any consecutive period will require the
sanction of the Administrative Officer (or the corresponding officer) in
charge of Administration of the office.
 Person reaching office within ten minutes of the opening hours are

nevertheless late. Such late coming may be condoned unless it

becomes a matter of frequent occurrence.
 At the end of each month the Section Officer will bring to the notice
of the Officer-In-Charge the name of person, if any, who had been
frequently or habitually late during the month without prior
permission.
 Punctuality:
(i) Strict measures should be taken by the administrative authorities for
the enforcement of punctuality. Section Officers/Supervisory Officers
should be very particular in scrutinizing the attendance register;
(ii) Surprise daily checks may be carried out in one or two sections of
the Ministry/Department/Office under the direct supervision of a
senior officer, like the Joint Secretary in charge of administration or of
the Head of the Department, as the case may be;
(iii) The lunch break must be scrupulously observed not only by the
subordinate staff but also by the supervisory officers and periodical
surprise checks should be made by the supervisory officers to ensure
that the staff under them do not overstay the lunch break.
 Address of officers and staff
 A list of the addresses of all officers and members of the staff
employed in a Department should be maintained up-to date in the
Administration Section.
 A similar list in respect of the staff employed in a Section should be
maintained by each Section Officer and one copy kept by him at this
residence.
 The members of the staff should intimate any change in their
residential address as soon as it takes place to the Section Officer as
well as to the Administration Section.
 In the Ministries a copy of the list should also be maintained by the
Resident Clerk.
 Office rooms
 In the interest of security, the ferash should not open any room in
his charge until the arrival of a clerk working in the Section or of the
peon attached thereto.
 During the lunch interval, a member of the staff should be on duty in
the room by turn.
 In the evening the last man to leave office will be responsible to
make over the room to the farash and to get the room locked.
 A register should be maintained to keep a record of the persons on
duty during the lunch interval and in the evening and they should
append their signatures therein in token of their having performed the
duty.
 In the case of room occupied by officers, the peons attached to
them should supervise by turn the sweeping, dusting and opening of
rooms. No outsider or a member of the office staff excepting the
Personal Assistant or Stenographer attached to the officer should
ordinarily be permitted to enter an officer’s room during his/her
absence. If any file, book or paper is required urgently during an
officer’s absence from the room it should be removed only by the
Personal Assistant or the Stenographer concerned.
 It is the general responsibility of the Section Officer to see that the
room or rooms occupied by the Section under his charge are
maintained in a neat and tidy condition. The assistants and Clerks
should keep their tables and surroundings neat and clean and the
papers neatly arranged.
 When leaving office, every member of the staff should see that all
papers, registers, etc. in his charge are kept in their proper places.
Pending papers should be kept together in a separate folder
appropriately marked.
 It shall be the duty of the Section Officer to see that the electric

lights, fans and heaters are used only when necessary and that they
are switched off when not required during office hours.
 Responsibility of the staff
each member of the staff of an office is responsible for the work
assigned to him/her and is also responsible for all official papers and
articles belonging to the office which are entrusted to him for his use.
 Maintenance of order in the
Section
 While the Head of Office is responsible for the general discipline of
the office.
 every Section Officer is responsible for the maintenance of order
in his/her Section and should prevent idle talking, loitering, reading
of newspapers etc. by his staff.
 Admission of outsiders to the
office
 The admission of outsiders or private persons to any part of the
office, for any purpose whatsoever, is prohibited.
 Any person calling on business or entitled by position to make
enquiry should do so from the Branch Officer or the Section Officer.
 No member of the staff should, under any circumstances, give any
information on any subject to any outsider.
 Any improper enquiries made by visitors should be brought to the
notice of the Branch Officer
Taking of papers outside the office
 Section Officers may, with the permission of their Branch Officers be
allowed to take officials papers to their houses if absolutely necessary
for dealing with any case of an urgent nature.
 This will not apply to secret papers the movement of which is
governed by the instructions issued on the subject by the Ministry of
Home Affairs.
 Members of staff should in no circumstances take official papers
home.
 Surprise visits
Surprise visits by the Head of the organisation and other senior
officers to the various sections of an office are very helpful in ensuring
that the attendance is regular and that there are no arrears of work
and that efficiency, neatness and tidiness are generally maintained.