The two employees of a unit of the state health department that functions out of New Secretariat failed to enter the office on Monday as the caretaker had gone to Bihar during the lockdown with the lone office key.

The employees attached to the unit had gone to the office on Monday as it resumed functioning after a two-and-a-half-month break forced by the lockdown.

But to their surprise, they found the office, located on the first floor of the staff quarters inside the New Secretariat building complex on Strand Road, locked.

“We were looking for the caretaker when we came to know that he had left for his home in Bihar’s Sasaram with the lone key of the office when the lockdown was announced. When we contacted him over the phone, he said the key was with him,” an employee said.

The caretaker is an employee of the PWD. The two employees went to the PWD office to find out what could be done.

The PWD staff advised the employees to break the lock and enter the office, they said. But they refused and asked the PWD to find a solution.

“As there were inadequate number of buses, it took me two-and-a-half hours to reach the office. Then we were asked to break the lock and enter,” said an employee.

The health unit provides basic treatment to employees of various government departments that function from New Secretariat and also employees of the City Civil Court and the Bankshal Court.

Asked about the norms to be followed in such cases, a PWD official whose office is in Salt Lake told Metro: “The caretaker should have left the keys, original or duplicate, with his colleagues before he left for his home state.”

Several rounds of meetings were held between the employees of the state health unit and the staff of the PWD.

“They (the PWD staff) kept insisting that we break the lock. We refused and waited till 4pm and then we left for home,” said an employee. They don’t know whether they would be able to enter the office on Tuesday.

One of the employees said they hoped the PWD would work something out. When this newspaper contacted the caretaker, who is in his 50s, he said: “I have committed a small mistake. But a solution has been found and the employees could start entering the office from Tuesday.”

He did not explain what the solution was.

The caretaker said he would return to Calcutta once the train services resumed. The employees said they were under the impression that their office was sanitised with disinfectants before being reopened. “But as no one was around to open the office. It is clear the office has not been sanitised,” said an employee.