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Reforms Sukhbir-Style: DCs given
lists of the 40 blessed ones
Sach Kanwal
Singh
 CHANDIGARH:
Strange are the ways of the Punjab Government run by the Akali Dal
of the Badals. When they announced setting up of an Admnistrative
Reforms Commission, the idea seemed a little bit jarring since
neither the Akalis under Badals were known for good governance, nor
for reforms.
But by the time,
the Commission's report has started making the rounds, their own
peculiar brand of reforms is also becoming clearer.
So, when Sukhbir
Singh Badal had a meeting with Dr Pramod Kumar, chairman of the
Punjab Governance Reforms Commission (PGRC), and S.C. Aggarwal,
Chief Secretary, on Friday, it was not clear whether the meeting was
with a party president who will be looking for petty gains for some
minions or with a Deputy Chief Minister who will be on alert for any
new ideas for reforming the Commission.
But the suspense
was short lived. As soon as the meeting ended, Sukhbir asked the
Akali Dal secretary Dr Daljit Singh Cheema to give a list of 40
Akali workers to each Deputy Commissioner present at the meeting.
All DCs were in attendance.
Sukhbir minced
no words in saying that the performance of the deputy commissioners
will be judged on the basis of how well they treated these key
chosen minions of the Akali Dal.
Cheema,
political advisor to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, handed over
the list to each DC, comprising names of Akali legislators as well
as district, tehsil, block and villagelevel party workers.
Thereafter, Sukhbir told the DCs that he did not want any worker on
the list to complain.
"Give them
priority. Keep them happy and in good humour or else you might have
to face the music," Sukhbir told them.
Clearly, what
Sukhbir was telling them was to indulge in favouritism instead of
removing any perceived or real sense of discrimination. Was he
inspired by the arguments and presentations of Dr Pramod Kumar?
That's for the good scholar to answer.
In another
completely illegal move, Sukhbir actually told the DCs that their
performance would be assessed by a secret agency every three months.
It was left unsaid as to what was the rationale behind judging the
performance of the DCs merely on the basis of six to seven reforms
suggested by the reforms commission when they must be measured
against a whole host of administrative norms and activities.
As to how well
do the various assessments work out was clear from the fact that the
Deputy CM adjudged Gurdaspur as the best district for policing
recently even when most people in the state know that Gurdaspur
district is one of the most corrupt in terms of policing.
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Use people's
money, keep MLAs happy
Punjab's
family-fiefdom style government run by democratically chosen
Badals is now using the taxpayers money to keep the flock
together. So, the official official kitty is at the disposal of
MLAs of the party.
CM Prakash
Singh Badal had asked the Rural Development Board (RDB) to
release Rs 5 crore to each SAD legislator and also to those who
lost in the 2007 Assembly polls.
RDB
officials said that with great difficulty they had convinced the
CM that the Rural Development Fund (RDF) was meant for building
link roads and construction of grain markets and hence could not
be given to MLAs or Akali workers.
Even then
the RDB was hard put to part with Rs 250 crore for the Akalis.
The government collects nearly Rs 500 crore under the RDF every
year.
"Later, the
RDB had to take Rs 300 crore loan to carry out development works
in rural areas," RDB officials said.
Even a
Member of Parliament (MP) gets only Rs 2 crore every year for
development works in his area, though his or her constituency is
nine times bigger than that of an MLA. "We have to refrain from
wasteful and unplanned expenditure to restore the administrative
and fiscal health of the state," RDB officials said.
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10
February 2010
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