Maddening Madam
The fickle nature and unpredictable persona of bureaucrats invariably creates perplexing situations for their juniors in the official machinery. In one such case, a lady IAS officer, calling the shots in the state administration these days on the basis of a high profile assignment she is given by the TSR government, is driving officials of a department responsible for maintaining government bungalows crazy. The department spent a fortune on the repair and renovation work as desired by the madam in her official residence but the lady officer is refusing to give a simple undertaking that she is satisfied with the work done. She is insisting that some engineer or expert should do a survey and file the report on quality of work. With no such precedence in place, the file is now travelling from one department to another with no one knowing what exactly is to be done. With his payment pending for more than one year now, the contractor who was allotted work to renovate the residence of the madam has vowed never to undertake such assignments again.
Elusive Elections
Moving in the public wearing a forced smile and with folded hands for long, the wait for aspirants of the Urban local Bodies elections is becoming agonising. Slated to be held in April this year, a plethora of litigations and judgements of High Court have created a situation wherein any possibility of holding these elections in the near future appears bleak. In such a scenario, the aspirants, who in anticipation of the elections had started propagating their names and had become spendthrifts by throwing regular parties to their perceived foot-soldiers of election campaign, are finding it hard to sustain the tempo. They are in a classic ‘Catch 22’ situation where they cannot either run away from things or suspend the self promotion crusade started by them. On top of it, these self proclaimed Netas have to keep maintaining a smiling demeanour and keep their now aching hands folded till the elections are held.
Pathetic Protest
The long agitation and subsequent ‘work boycott’- this term was carefully chosen in place of strike to escape wrath of court though the HC called the bluff- of the joint forum of the state government employees ended without ruffling any feathers in the government. The work boycott call given by the forum formed by cobbling up almost all employee unions and associations of contractual workers failed on very second day, when bogged down by state administration’s ‘ No work no pay rule’ diktat, the UPNl workers resumed work. The beleaguered leaders of the forum then managed a meeting with the cabinet minister Prakash Pant but it too proved that an obstinate government is not prepared to yield anything. The order of Uttarakhand HC to state government for invoking ESMA on the striking employees actually proved a blessing in disguise for the besieged employee leaders and provided them a face saver to end their agitation. Apart from creating sharp divisions among the employee unions, the failed agitation has also given a serious setback to cause of the employees in the state.
