Bihar bureaucrats can no longer afford to be casual about what they wear to work. All government officials in the state have been directed to shed their jeans and designer shirts and rely on khadi. Time to go swadeshi, folks.
The dress code suggests that IAS officers and other civil servants should dress in formal Indian clothes like dhoti with kurta or shirt or a bush-shirt with trousers (white or some dull shade). A short buttoned-up coat and trousers (white or grey) are also allowed. The fabrics should preferably be hand-spun and hand-woven. [Link]
Women officers have not been spared either. For them, it will be plain saris or salwar-kameez and dupatta, but nothing remotely expensive or fashionable.
Cabinet Secretary Girish Shankar feels all this is fine: “There is nothing new about the dress code. It was framed long back but seldom followed. Now, all government officials will have to be strict in the observance of the code.”
Hindustan Times reports:
For ceremonial occasions and evening parties a black sherwani teamed with white churidar pyjamas or a black bandhgala and white or crème trousers are the suggested options. Incidentally, the dress code does not mention the safari suit, a hot favourite with babus, as formal wear.
A dress code for bureaucrats was prescribed as early as the early fifties, during the regime of the Srikrishna Singh government to discontinue the legacy of civil servants of the British Raj. The objective was to restrain government officials from wearing western clothes.
