Calcutta, May 27: The office will officially invade the homes of several IAS officers in Bengal with the state government today issuing an order to set up a "camp office" at the residence of secretaries or the heads of all the 68 departments.

"The governor is pleased to decide that a camp/residential office will be set up for the secretaries/heads of the department of the state government to enable the officers to devote more time and attention to official work before and after the office hours and even on holidays," reads the order that reached the officials today.

Sources said the directive - referred to by some officials as a "24x7" order but only half in jest - is part of a drive by the chief minister to clear the huge backlog in projects and schemes in the districts ahead of the Assembly polls next year.

The order dated May 20 is the brainchild of the personnel and administrative reforms department, which reports to the chief minister. It said two attendants would be deployed in the residential offices and facilities like a computer, a printer and an Internet connection would be provided by the department concerned.

A minister projected the order as an attempt to change the "work culture". "Except a few secretaries like the chief secretary, the home secretary and the disaster management secretary, the others remain unavailable after office hours. The chief minister wants to change this culture," said the minister.

Another minister said: "We have promised so many things to poor people and the minority communities but we have realised that so much work is still left. The department secretaries have to take the responsibility to complete the projects on time."

He added: "We had promised to set up 24 ITIs and seven polytechnic colleges in minority-dominated areas. But none could be made operational so far."

The state is also lagging behind in building houses for the poor and distributing pattas on homestead land.

But a bureaucrat said: "It is not possible for the secretary alone to complete the projects.... It is team work but state government employees refuse to work beyond scheduled office hours and we cannot force them." He said many employees were miffed with the government's failure to clear dearness allowance dues.

The chief minister, however, had made it clear that department heads should shoulder the maximum responsibilities. Today, she rejected a proposal to give the responsibility of home affairs to a senior IAS officer of the department in the absence of Basudeb Banerjee, the home secretary.

"The home secretary would be visiting the US for two weeks.... It was proposed that R.K Gupta, the principal secretary of the department, would head the department in the absence of Banerjee. But the chief minister has given the responsibility to chief secretary Sanjay Mitra, going against the practice," said an official.