Thanks to the protracted squabbling among some egotistical Babus, the state’s former chief secretary N Ravishankar would not figure in the telephone directory to be published by the state information department later this month or early next month. The seasoned bureaucrat who was appointed CS in the last quarter of 2014 retired last month after singing his swan song of exonerating the embattled state government of the taint of the RTI-triggered 2013 disaster scam. To clear the publication of the long-awaited directory of the cobwebs of egotistic tussle, he had constituted a two- member committee. Now, the committee has given its nod and the information department has approved the dummy sheet of directory which will be published after incorporating phenomenal changes. However, his name would be conspicuous by its absence in the new-made directory for whose publication he played an instrumental role.
Cheap and palatable, yetIJ
Dehradun being deemed an as expensive city, good news for the financially less fortunate, courtesy the state government’s ingenious Indira Amma Yojna, set to be launched on August 15. You will get nutritious food- two Madua-made chapattis, Dal and sweet dishes made up of Jhangora, for Rs 20 per plate. Such food will be provided to the people at newly constructed MDDA shopping complex at Clock Tower, the bustling heart of the city. If the response proves good the same would be started in other parts of the state as well. The state government has embarked on it with three objectives in view- first, ensuring subsidized yet nutritious food to the unprivileged, second, ensuring market for the farmers’ produce and third, the visitors would be acquainted with the state’s typical cuisines. However, the wise choose to keep their fingers crossed over the viability of such a scheme. Would it bleed the already cash-strapped exchequer whiteIJ
Seemingly edified by the predicament of the stung bureaucrat Mohammad Shahid, a visibly scared secretary has removed curtains from the windows of his official chamber. It would help him to see whosoever is waiting outside, he felt. However, it would help those waiting outside to see whether the officer is engaged in work or he is idling away time. The silver lining of the sting-triggered transparency is the fact that with people being in position to see the officer at work through the un-curtained casements, the Babu would be forced to be extra productive. This would raise efficiency if others follow him with the buzz running that the Babus spend much of time in unproductive babble. However, the irony of the story is that the officer who has raised the curtains up is the one whose departments are always under the lens of everyone for obvious reasons.