The lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung who now enjoys the powers of the Chief Minister of Delhi too, is expected to retrofit city bureaucracy. Besides effective sweeping changes in the bureaucracy, Jung has a major task in his hand as the Arvind Kejriwal Government did not present Delhi’s Budget for 2014-15 in the Assembly session. So there is no approved fund for expenditure from April 1 onwards. Delhi Government employees would get their salaries till February. But their salary for March will be released on April 1.
Sources said that the corridors of Players Building are agog that current Chief Secretary SK Srivastava may be replaced as he was appointed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government led by Arvind Kejriwal. All those officials who are to be performers but were shunted out, the day Kejriwal took oath of the office of the Chief Minister.
They are expected to get back into the reckoning. There is also possibility that lieutenant-Governor may appoint a team of advisers to run the Delhi Government. Besides, the lieutenant-Governor will have to start focussing on the Budget 2014-15 for the Capital as the Kejriwal Government was too occupied with the controversial Delhi Jan lokpal Bill and political vendetta against the previous Sheila Dikshit Government. They did not even plan the Budget on agenda nor placed the Budget on the floor of the House.
Under President’s Rule, the lieutenant-Governor has two options to cleanse the mess created by Kejriwal Government. One, they can forward vote on account to Parliament and the same will be approved by the Parliament. There is second option with the lieutenant-Governor. If the vote on account is not presented on time for Parliament’s approval, the lieutenant-Governor may forward the Budget to the President straightaway. The President will approve the Budget in the form of an Ordinance.
Thus the lieutenant-Governor has both the option to solve the problem. But the entire bureaucracy has held Kejriwal responsible for not laying the Budget in the Assembly who single-mindedly carried out his own political agenda of Delhi Jan lokpal. So the Government may face music due to irresponsible behaviour of the Kejriwal regime which was too focussed on their political agenda to secure a safe exit.
Sources said that there will be massive reshuffle in the bureaucracy. Rajinder Kumar who was Secretary to the Chief Minister is likely to be shifted to some other department. It is noted that across departments nearly 100-odd officials were transferred in an apparent bid to weed out those who may have been posted due to connections and officials with “doubtful” credentials. The exercise, it is claimed, was intended to make administration more responsive and honest.
On its first day in office, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP Government in Delhi affected a major bureaucratic reshuffle and transferred nine bureaucrats, including the finance secretary MM Kutty, power secretary Rajnikant Verma and chief executive of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Debashree Mukherjee. MM Kutty, a senior IAS who was former CM Sheila Dikshit’s principal secretary, was moved to finance, to social welfare and women and child development and finally was again given additional charge of finance.