{ THE CENTRAL VISTA SHIFT } Secret-ariat: How govt moves offices, in the dead of night

Government departments and ministries are moving offices under cover of darkness, with mobile phone bans, signed evidence seals and escorts being central to a mammoth administrative relocation exercise from colonial-era buildings to the modern new Common Central Secretariat building in the heart of India’s capital.

- Prawesh Lama

According to people privy to the secretive exercise, officials of the rank of section officer or assistant section officer are overseeing the meticulously planned transfer of offices, especially sensitive files that can feature from routine administrative correspondence to pending cabinet proposals, eac