less than three months after the Opposition gave its voice to the whistle that blew the lid off the education scam allegedly involving Punjab Education Minister Sikander Singh Maluka, the whistleblower Kahan Singh Pannu was shifted to the Agriculture Department on Monday.
Earlier a director general school education (DGSE), IAS officer Pannu has now been posted as Agriculture Secretary replacing VK Sharma.
The shift from academic culture to the agriculture came after Pannu requested Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to order his transfer from the education department, after his return from rescue and relief operation in Uttarakhand.
Owing to the delay in decision on his request for assigning a new assignment, Pannu decided to proceed on a long leave. He was on two-week leave apparently due to
differences with the education minister and was expected to join his duty on Monday.
Pannu’s transfer was anticipated as a fall out of the strained relationship between him and Maluka. “Pannu was expected to join on Monday. But, as it was noticed that both the Education Minister and Pannu do not want to work with each other due to the ongoing tensed relations between them, the decision was taken to accept Pannu’s request for shifting him to another department for better functioning,” a senior Government official, requesting anonymity, told The Pioneer.
“Transferring Pannu is the only way out of this tensed situation else the education department would have suffered,” added the official.
Going into background of the matter, Pannu had
red-flagged the alleged irregularities in the purchase of textbooks and other reading material with the Central funds under Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). Since then, he had been at loggerheads with Maluka.
The then DGSE Pannu, on the directions of the Chief Minister’s office, had conducted an inquiry, and on the basis of the same, Chief Minister had ordered the suspension of three “blue-eyed” officials of Maluka.
On the other hand, a central Government team visited the state to probe the allegations of SSA funds’ misuse, and eventually indicted Maluka of misappropriating central funds.
Notably, bypassing the education secretary and the DGSE, Maluka had formed a three-member committee which, going against the SSA rules, made the purchase of books, science kits and other items worth crores of rupees.
Maluka’s daughter-in-law Parampal Kaur is still continuing her work on deputation in the education department as an additional project director in the DGSE office. Though anticipated and despite government’s assertions, she had not been sent back to her parent department — Rural and Panchayat Department — where she was recruited as a block development and panchayat officer (BDPO).
Politicians ‘win race’, babus lag behind
Once again, the political heads have declared winners against the bureaucracy in Punjab. Kahan Singh Pannu became the second IAS officer after Krishan Kumar who was made to bow down to the pressure of their political bosses, interestingly the State Education Minister in both the cases.
During the Badal Government’s previous tenure, the then Education Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan managed to literally show the door to the then DGSE Krishan Kumar after the two locked horns over the
working of the education department, particularly the appointment of teachers under SSA.
Victimised by a Punjab minister and after witnessing as many as nine transfers in 12 months at the beginning of his civil services career in Punjab, the 1997-batch Punjab IAS cadre officer Krishan Kumar finally succeeded in finding his way into the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in 2011.