Patna: Junior Indian Administrative Service officers have told chief secretary Deepak Kumar that they are ready to help the state government boost governance across Bihar including the far flung areas, but lack of toilets, drinking water and residential facilities are major hurdles for extended field visits to implement and monitor development schemes.

They raised the issues in front of chief secretary Deepak Kumar at a meeting held on Tuesday evening.

The meeting, which was convened to seek suggestions on good governance, ended with some of the 31 junior IAS officers - serving in the ranks of joint secretary, additional secretary and special secretary - being sent late in the night to assess the working of police stations.

"We would be happy to visit the blocks and stay there to monitor development and welfare works in adjoining panchayats and villages. But there are no infrastructure facilities present at the block levels to facilitate our stay," an official who was present at the meeting told The Telegraph on Wednesday under cover of anonymity.

"There are no proper toilets, drinking water and residences to help us function from there. Even the block offices are in poor shape. These issues were raised by us in front of the chief secretary," the official added.

Along with presenting various suggestions on improving infrastructure in the blocks, the officials also raised the problems being faced by them due to acute shortage of manpower in several departments.

Such shortage, they pointed out, ultimately leads to non-implementation or inadequate implementation of various schemes and hampers monitoring of the government projects, no matter how well-meaning.

Among the popular suggestions floated at the meeting, one was about each IAS officer adopting a village, ensuring that all development and welfare schemes are properly implemented there, and developing it as a model for other villages.

Advice on improving policing was also sought at the meeting.

Those present said that problems related to registering of FIRs should be ironed out, especially police tactics to delay and avoid lodging of complaints, including surreptitiously filing a backdated FIR when a case blows up and there is media glare on it.

The officials also said that the station diary should be compulsorily made online to bring transparency in the functioning of police stations.

The IAS officers suggested expediting the computerisation of land records and improving e-governance in all departments, including training of personnel including in the far-flung areas.

"We sent 18 IAS officers separately as common man to different police stations to feel the difficulties that could be encountered in lodging an FIR," the chief secretary told media persons on Wednesday. "Their response has been very surprising.

"Surprisingly, around 85 per cent of them were satisfied with the functioning of the police stations and the behaviour of the policemen," he added.

The chief secretary said that identities of two of the 18 IAS officers who were sent to police stations incognito got revealed after the officials' vehicles stopped right in front of the police stations they were supposed to visit, and they alighted with their bodyguards.

"We have come to know about infrastructure deficiencies at the police stations, including lighting, spare vehicles, poor shape of buildings and other things. Efforts will be made to address them," Deepak said.

The chief secretary has already told the director-general of police K.S. Dwivedi and home department principal secretary Amir Subhani to address the issues related to the police stations.