The directorate of Information and Publicity, Uttarakhand or for that matter the State Government dumps a huge number of new year-2014 calendars and publicity materials printed for public distribution, only because these new year 2014 calendars and the publicity materials are carrying former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna’s photographs.
Apart from publicity materials in huge quantity, calendars carrying former Chief Minister Bahuguna’s photographs running over 10,000 in number, are lying dumped at the media centre, Haldwani. The officials concerned at the media centre in Haldwani, are clueless now, not knowing what to do with these new year 2014 calendars and publicity materials.
If over 10,000 calendars are lying dumped at the media centre in Haldwani, so one can easily make an estimation to what scale the directorate of information and publicity, Uttarakhand, must have got printed the aforesaid calendars for all 13 districts of the Himalayan State and for distribution among the people at large. Getting printed publicity materials including new year 2014 calendars in such large scale seems to be reflecting only gross ignorance on part of the officials concerned in the directorate of information and publicity, Uttarakhand.
Change of guard in the State Government did not take place overnight. The fact is that speculation over replacement of Bahuguna was going on for quite a long time. The demand for removing beleaguered Bahaguna only became stronger towards fag end of 2013. Therefore, the officials concerned in the directorate of information and publicity responsible for preparing the publicity materials, could have delayed the calendar and other publicity material printing order, admitted the highly-placed sources in the corridors of power.
But they, caring less about its financial implications, went ahead only to end up getting new year 2014 calendars and publicity materials worth lakhs of rupees dumped up, maintained the officials concerned. At a time when the hill State’s financial health is not very sound. It has still to depend on the Central aid to a large extent to meet its expenditures. Wastage of public money as has come to light in the form of the ‘dumped’ publicity materials, including calendars for 2014, is not good for the financial health Uttarakhand.
The interesting fact is that even the former Chief Minister Bahuguna had expressed his concern over widening divide between State expenditure and its income. He during his Kumaon visit last year had maintained that out of over Rs 25,000 crore State’s annual Budget, he had to spend about Rs 18,000 crore only on employees salaries. Now these employees who draw their salaries from the tax payers’ money, are taking less care about the public exchequer. In the meanwhile, new calendars have been printed by the directorate of information and publicity, Uttarakhand. But this time these new calendars 2014 are not carrying photographs of any personality.