Dhami’s headache
Even as the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami exhibited immense maturity and political astuteness to douse the fire generated by the spat between forest minister Subodh Uniyal and saffron party’s Dalit MLA Durgeshwar Lal, the unsavoury episode has again highlighted the fact that the ministers of Dhami cabinet are continuing to create discomfiture for the ruling BJP and the young CM. This time around, it was the forest minister who drew attention for wrong reasons as the Purola MLA Lal claimed that he was abused and caste slur was hurled at him by the minister when he took up the issue of two officers of Indian Forest Service deployed in Uttarkashi district. Uniyal was recently involved in another controversy when in a viral video he was purportedly heard denigrating the court while talking with the BJP MLA from Bhimtal on the issue of human- wildlife conflict. Those who know the minister intimately vouch that he often gets swayed in his choice of words during light-hearted conversation. Earlier, two heavyweight ministers Prem Chand Agarwal and Ganesh Joshi shamed the saffron party when they showed their machismo on the streets, triggering fierce rows.
Headless departments
The much-vaunted objective of the government to double the income of farmers in the Himalayan state has got jolted by the absence of directors in the key farmer-related departments: agriculture and horticulture. Taking a stern view of the graft complaints, the State government suspended the director of horticulture department H S Baweja in June last year and since then the position remained vacant. In a bureaucratic rejig effected on Wednesday, the government handed over the additional charge of director horticulture to the labour commissioner Haldwani, Dipti Singh. Considering her background and place of posting, it would be difficult for her to handle a high- profile department where the thrust of the government is to emulate neighbouring Himachal Pradesh in horticulture production. Similarly, the chair of the director agriculture remains vacant ever since the longest -serving incumbent Gauri Shankar went on leave after applying for VRS in August last year when the state administration created a new post of Director General (DG) to supervise both the agriculture and the horticulture departments.
Restless Rawat
The hyperactivity and restlessness of the cabinet minister Dhan Singh Rawat is taking a toll on the officers of the departments headed by him. In recent times, the health department is in the focus of the minister due to which the officers are virtually on their feet. Keen to get the compliment from the Union ministry of health, the minister is trying to make the department meet the targets in the centrally- sponsored schemes and plans. It is learnt that the minister took daily meetings of the chief medical officers (CMO) and other officers of the department for 21 consecutive days recently to monitor progress of various schemes, particularly the Ayushman Gram concept in which focus is to prepare health cards and ABHA IDs of the entire population. The continuous monitoring by the minister is keeping the babus on their toes and many of them are said to be at their wits’ end. One hopes that the activity of the minister will get reflected in the improvement in the health services, particularly in the mountainous interiors of the State.
