Interior permanent secretary Grisada Boonrach has instructed all provincial governors to be flexible in adjusting the mandatory one-hour exercise of ministry officials to ensure there is no disruption to public services.
The order was contained in an urgent letter which was sent to provincial governors on Thursday. It followed Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s order on all government agencies to arrange for their officials to exercise every Wednesday between 3.30pm and 4.30pm, starting from Nov 30.
The workout policy was introduced after the premier was told of the findings from an international conference on physical activities that Thai youth and the elderly spend many hours on stationary activities such as watching TV and checking their smartphones.
Mr Grisda said in the letter that most Interior Ministry work involved services to members of the public, so he wanted the governors to give first priority to the public and adjust the workout schedule as appropriate.
“Any agency whose duties are to service people directly must prioritise the service until there are no service receivers left. Then they should arrange for at least one or two officials to remain on duty, and in case of emergency they must be ready to respond immediately,” Mr Grisda said in the letter.
“They can allow officials to take turns in exercising from 4pm onwards.”
Meanwhile, Chatchawarn Cherdchaisakda, director of Udon Thani provincial land office, has denied services were to be brought to a halt at noon every Wednesday.
Social media users have shared a photo of a sheet of paper announcing the land office “will stop taking queue tickets at noon every Wednesday, starting from Nov 30, to carry out the cabinet resolution on the Wednesday exercise policy”.
The paper was found in a box which contains free documents for the public inside the office. It sparked criticism from people who accused the Udon Thani land officials of exploiting the scheme.
Mr Chatchawarn said he had checked with officials and did not know who had made the invalid announcement.
“Such an order can be made by the Department of Lands only,” he said.
Mr Chatchawarn apologised to the public for the misunderstanding, saying his subordinates would still provide services from 3pm to 4.30pm and would not leave the office for the Wednesday physical activity because they had a lot of work to handle.
“With regards to the exercise, it doesn’t have to be on Wednesdays. They can exercise every day after work or once a week,” Mr Chatchawarn said.