From asking whether a woman employee is a virgin to ordering rakhi to be tied in office, some orders confirm your suspicion that everything is not all right in government offices. No wonder governance is a casualty.

Overzealous officials have also in the past taken umbrage to what the employees have worn to office and ordered them to wear “decent” clothes. The indecent article of clothing is jeans and t-shirt. And how will changing to pant-shirt or salwar-kameez help the employees perform better is not clear. These inane directives are quite over the top.

The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna raked up a controversy by bringing up a rather bizarre form for its employees. The marriage declaration form issued by the Institute asked the employees to declare their virginity and the number of wives they are married too, reported Indian Express.

After an uproar, the language in the form was changed. The word virgin was replaced with unmarried.

Another order that got people’s goat was issued by the Daman and Diu administration. The women employees were asked to tie 'rakhi' to their male colleagues on upcoming Rakshabandhan festival.

Deputy Secretary, Personnel, Gurpreet Singh, said it has been decided by the administration to celebrate the festival of Rakshabandhan on August 7. "In this connection, all offices and departments shall remain open and celebrate the festival collectively at a suitable time wherein all the lady staff shall tie rakhi to their colleagues," the circular issued said.

This order too was later withdrawn.

When Yogi Adityanath took over as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March this year, he took a string of decisions and one of them was banning jeans and T-shirts for the state government employees during duty hours.

It was, however, not made clear whether the chief minister would continue to wear the ochre robe or he too would opt for a more sedate dress.

In 2012, the women and child department (WCD) in Haryana asked its field staff to desist from wearing jeans and T-shirts to work and to wear “decent” clothes.

The circular had been sent by the WCD director's office to all its field offices which run the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). Advising the field staff, the directive describes "decent" clothing as "sari/salwar-kameez with dupatta" for women and "pant-shirt" for men. The circular states, "It has been observed that some officers/officials come to office in jeans/t-shirts/western dresses which sometimes not only look odd but are also in contravention of government rules.”

Well,  go figure.