All THE CHIEF MINISTER’S MEN IN NABAKAlEBAR PREPARATION
Services of a number of political and civil service worthies have been drafted by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to make Nabakalebar a success. In July last year, he appointed ex-Minister and Puri MlA Maheswar Mohanty, a lumbering gorilla, as Chairman of the Infrastructure Supervision Committee to monitor all infrastructure development for Nabakalebar. His dilettante’s approach to the assigned task calls into question his fitness for holding any public office, let alone one dealing with matters as critical as Nabakalebar infrastructure. He, however, makes it a point to periodically parachute before TV cameras to make crass claims that the work is proceeding smoothly. In March this year, senior IAS officer Suresh Mohapatra was appointed, on the strength of his much-trumpeted domain knowledge, Chief Administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration. Immediately after assuming charge, he said his “first priority is make Nabakalebar a successful event”. little did his bold statement of intent give us a warning that he would soon be riding a tiger only to be caught between its teeth. When Mohapatra was stretching himself too much to oversee the entire gamut of work relating to Nabakalebar, Patnaik appointed as many as six topnotch IAS officers to expedite progress in six defined areas of activity. From the very beginning, these officers went into their jobs as a long shot and so they proved in their performances. Nobody has seen or heard any of them, barring the Chief Secretary, applying himself to his task. May be they knew, given the sheer scale of infrastructure development, it was the political leadership which should come to the forefront and not the bureaucracy. When nothing was working according to his plans, Patnaik rushed four young Ministers to Puri on a rescue mission. Still not satisfied with this, he pulled out a roly-poly police officer from his frontline duty of combating Maoist extremism, perhaps to the relief of both, to bring about coordination among the different sections engaged in making Nabakalebar a success. According to rhetoric, OSD Soumendra Priyadarshi is in possession of a unique satnav, developed all by himself during his two previous stints as Puri SP, that will enable him to guide the troubled Government past all its difficulties. Patnaik is indeed behaving like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast-advancing car. like the rabbit, he is so frightened that he doesn’t know which way he should go. All this is happening because he never moved out of his bunker to see for himself the actual state of affairs at the ground zero. He only calls review meetings in his office and issues a flurry of orders in last-gasp attempts to fix things. like Alice in Blunderland, he is frankly at his wit’s end. Under the generalissimo’s watch, Brahma Parivartan was a disaster and infrastructure development is lagging behind. Who else will carry the canIJ
KAHIN PE NIGAHEN KAHIN PE NISHANA
Feeling the heat generated by the agitations of the Congress and the BJP over the mishandling of Nabakalebar, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is desperate to be seen as taking a tough stand against the unruly Daitapatis. The problem is he is willing to strike but afraid to wound them, just days before the Car Festival. He knows what these Daitapatis are capable of. Their nuisance value knows no bounds. Any action against them now will upset Patnaik’s Nabakalebar applecart. So, catch someone high-profile for a much-publicised dressing-down. That will boost the CM’s image as a no-nonsense commander of the situation. And who better fits the bill than the head of a macho organisationIJ A two-and-a-half month-old indiscretion committed by DGP Sanjeev Marik for touching the feet of some Daitapatis was picked up for a choreographed reprimand. The stunt of the CM getting angry with the DGP and the latter grovelling for forgiveness went on air immediately and hit the bull’s eye straightaway. Patnaik’s single shot killed several birds. Rowdy Daitapatis got the tough message the public wanted them to get: they are not worthy of being deified. Second, he has taken the sting out of the Opposition criticism that he is protecting the evildoers. Third, and most important, public are impressed that Patnaik is a dragon-slayer, never afraid of taking on the high and mighty by the scruff of their neck. Is there anybody out there who still says Patnaik is not a gifted artist in self-promotionIJ
FAKE CBSE-AFFIlIATED SCHOOlS: AN EDUCATION RACKET THRIVING UNDER GOVERNMENT’S NOSE
In a redux of chit funds swindling gullible depositors, we now have fake CBSE-affiliated schools cheating our young students. There are only 40 CBSE-affiliated schools in the city. But there are more than 100 schools which are not affiliated to the CBSE but proclaim they are following the CBSE pattern or adopting the CBSE syllabus. Ordinary people can’t detect the subtle difference between a CBSE-affiliated and a CBSE-patterned school. They fall prey to the education racketeers’ misleading information by enrolling their children in these fake schools at fancy fees. The students of these schools can’t sit in the CBSE-conducted examinations. Clearly, the racketeers are playing with the future of our young boys and girls, a far more serious crime than the chit funds swindling the depositors. The CBSE says it doesn’t have enforcement machinery to stop the fake schools from operating. But since these schools are plying their business with no-objection certificate from the Government, it is the latter which should take coercive action against them. But, as we have seen in the chit fund case and pilferage of mineral wealth, our Government always functions with its eyes sealed shut. Business buccaneers are looting the State and the people with such gay abandon that they would give even the Somali pirates a run for their money. Can the Government’s inefficiency be ever more monstrousIJ For our Government, the question of being labelled as the most inefficient in the country is not if but when.
BlINKERED OPPOSITION SCORING OWN GOAl
Naveen Patnaik’s Government deserves criticism for tardy implementation of the Nabakalebar infrastructure projects. But nobody can deny that it has undertaken development of infrastructure on a scale never seen before. Puri is now a giant construction site. A large number of projects worth hundreds of crores of rupees for improvement of rail and road connectivity, drainage, electricity, healthcare, water supply and sanitation are being implemented with men and machines working at breakneck speed. Many projects are complete and many others will miss the Nabakalebar deadline. But when completed, Puri town and its surrounding areas will get a makeover so massive as to be visible even from space. They are literally on the threshold of a fairytale transformation. People of Puri and lakhs of tourists will experience a vastly improved quality of life. But the BJP and the Congress are tripping over each other in criticising the Government over the delay in project implementation. Their headlong rush to criticise everything that the Government is doing does not cover them with glory. Their credibility will suffer third-degree burns if they try to mislead people on what is clearly visible and palpable.
(saratpattanayak@hotmail.com (M) 9437962121)