Kendrapara: The Kendrapara district collector Friday issued directions withholding the November salaries of all employees of 51 government offices for not implementing the OSWAS (Odisha Secretariat Workflow Automation System) mode of paperless work.
Sources said that around 300 employees, many of them in panchayat offices, may be affected.
The state government has mandated all offices to operate through the digital workflow system.
Of the 124 government offices in the district, only 73 were found implementing OSWAS while remaining offices were found operating manually. As non-implementation of OSWAS infringed government notification, their salaries for the current month has been held up as a disciplinary measure, District Collector Raghuram R Iyer said in the order.
OSWAS is an e-governance initiative by the Odisha government to digitise and automate file management and official workflows in the departments. The system aims to increase efficiency, transparency, and accountability by moving from a manual, paper-based system to an electronic one, enabling digital processing of files, inter-departmental communication, and real-time tracking of work.
He said the government has many times trained employees of all the departments regarding the use of OSWAS.