Defiant DFO
A divisional forest officer (DFO) has been troubling the state government because of his strong penchant to cling to the chair he is holding, defying the order. As he was transferred and made working plan officer of the forest department he moved court while challenging his transfer citing the fact that the post is meant for the conservator, which post belongs to Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers. later, the government promoted a few DFOs, including the defiant DFO, who were PFSs, as IFSs. Now, the DFO is eligible to hold the post, given his promotion. But intriguingly, he has written to the government, saying that his astrological constellation is not favourable for him to take up the post. Now, the file having reached to the table of the department head, his seniors look baffled as to how to deal with the quirky DFO, inclined to hold fast to the chair while junking promotion.
Crusading official for CMDF
The tendency being found in many of the beneficiaries to misuse the chief minister’s discretionary fund- meant to help them meet the medical expenses- might be curbed following a bureaucrat taking pains to make things transparent. The officer has made it a rule that the money to be released from the CMDF would be sent straight to the hospitals where the beneficiaries are treated. Since the CMDF came up in 2007 to help the needy meet the medical expenses, there have been instances galore of the beneficiaries misusing the provision while depriving the really needy of the benefits of the provision. Aside from ensuring that the money allotted from CMDF reaches the hospitals concerned, the bureaucrat has made sure that the financial status of the beneficiaries is verified through local intelligence units (lIU). Besides, police would go to the residences of the beneficiaries to take stock of things. The officer has made it a point that it must be ascertained whether the beneficiaries are collecting money from CMDF and, at the same time, are having their medical bills reimbursed from the departments they are working in. This aside, the bureaucrat has made submission of Aadhar numbers mandatory for the beneficiaries. The practice of the hospitals making the patients to cough up the whole amount incurred for their treatment in one go before they are discharged would also stop. What happened is that the hospitals returned the money the patients were forced to part with after the funds from CMDF reached them. The new norm would spare the poor among the beneficiaries the distress of parting with a large amount from their tiny savings to pay the bills due to the hospitals during the time of their discharge.