Crafty division of Babus
In a bid to balance money and image, two essentials for keeping the political edifice running in full swing, the crafty Chief Minister Harish Rawat has invented an ingenious scheme-to divide bureaucracy into two parts, called Team-A and Team-B. Those belonging to the Team-A comprising senior bureaucrats are seasoned in conjuring up money from sands and the like. They are being appointed in plum posts that are instrumental in keeping the political/ Governmental machinery well-oiled in terms of easy bucks. Those from the Team-B are cleanliness incarnate in the public eyes. They are being given assignments to shore up the image of the State Government in terms of implementation of the Government’s popular schemes on the ground. In the recent administrative reshuffle involving five districts — Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Pithoragarh, Haridwar and Dehradun— the State Government’s strategy has become crystal clear. Four of the five new DMs are from the Team-B. They represent the outer façade of the Government. Those adept in backdoor maneuvering to milk money out of the vulnerable are being generally kept beyond the glare of public eye to let them doing their works stealthily.
Congress spiting Congress
Queer though it may sound, Congress in Uttarakhand is under siege more from within than from without. This is particularly true on the health front. The Congress MlAs are hell-bent on queering the pitch of the State Government, as the latter has strongly pitched in to revamp the long-doddering State-run hospitals. For instance, to upgrade Srinagar Medical College (SMC), the State Government had attached Srinagar Base Hospital with SMC, which is also known as Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Institute of Medical Science& Research, Srinagar. With things rolling on, the Srinagar Base Hospital staffers, which are accustomed to having less work and hefty salary, had to sweat hard for hours. Unable to bear such a ‘predicament’ any longer, they took it to their public representatives. Empathising with the ‘pitiable plight’ of the petitioners, the public figures embarked on sit-in. That yielded the desired result with the Government having cravenly genuflected and detached the facility from SMC. Besides, SMC which was established to ensure that the medical needs of the locals are rightly catered to has failed to rise up to the occasion. This aside, the dream that begot it of producing MBBSs dedicated to the cause of the Hill State has also proved a chimera with the students, on becoming doctors, choosing to either leave the State for greener pastures elsewhere or to swarm into private facilities, deserting SMC, for a handful of silvers. This despite the fact that the State substantially subsidises their medical education fees with the students paying a paltry Rs15,000 per annum. Moreover, they sign a bond which says that they will stay put in the State for three to five years, to serve the ill-cared people there. What are left for the people who struggled hard to conjure up Uttarakhand with sweat, blood toil and tears are mere sighs with the reverie of better days turning into an anathema of un-redressed agony.