The frequent transfers of tourism secretary cited by present incumbent Sajal Chakravarty in the Jharkhand High Court for the lacklustre performance of the department may be debatable, but the revelations depict the sordid state of affairs in the State.
Playing a perfect musical chair, as many as 13 IAS officers have held the post during the last three years. One IAS officer held the post of merely 13 days during the period. If the tenure chart of successive tourism secretaries is looked at, no secretary remained in chair for more than seven months since 2010. Amrendra Pratap Singh held the post for the maximum period of seven months while Mast Ram Meena remained on the post of mere 13 days during the period. Chakravarty has been holding the post since May 2013.
Nilima Kerketta had been posted as Tourism Secretary for five times in five different periods.So it was not for nothing that the Supreme Court also recently directed the Centre and the States to put an end to frequent transfers of civil servants and set up a Civil Services Board (CSB) for the management of transfers, postings, inquiries, process of promotion, reward, punishment and
disciplinary matters in order to insulate the bureaucracy from political interference. The officials in tourism department asserted that the developmental works were badly hampered due to the change of secretaries as they did not get adequate time to understand the things. “It is important to understand the things before taking any decision as no one is trained for this specific job. One has to understand about the staff, office as well as the history of schemes — which fund has to be invested for which construction work,” said Tourism Secretary Sajal Chakraverty. It is impossible to understand all these things in the two or two and a half month’s time, he added.
The HC’s instructions proded Chakraverty to visit various tourist sites on Wednesday. Chakraverty will submit adetailed report to the HC after his review, said sources. Those who have left the post also learnt to have same opinion as Chakravarty. “We are also human beings, by the time you understand the things, you are gone. If you have to face the same fate in every three months, you will finally give up…and a negative energy develops in your mind that nothing could be done,” said a former tourism secretary requesting anonymity. For an official, a transfer is not only a physical dislocation but also a mental dislocation, he added.
How can one expect any development if the head of the department is changed every three months, he addedIJ “The post of Tourism Secretary has been made a musical chair after 2007 after SK Chaudhary was transferred and thereafter no one was allowed to remain there for more than a month or two,” said a former official of the Tourism department requesting anonymity. Before that directors were being changed on regular basis.
“The regular transfer affects both ways - the department as well as human resource, creating an adverse impact on the fresh projects as well as the ongoing ones. The post of secretary has been made a laboratory,” he added. Though the matter of regular transfers in the department was raised before every government in this period, there was no one to hear them, claimed the official.
The simple reason given for the regular transfer of secretaries was also shocking. “Since the department is not on the political agenda of the government and the importance of the department is judged by the allotment given to it, such things are bound to happen as such departments are considered to be the punishment postings,” said the official.
Moreover, these departments are considered as very small ones where there is very less scope for making innovations. The officials posted in these departments are not given much importance by the Government, he added. But in reality, tourism plays an important role in the image building and also increases the opportunities for livelihood for the state, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are the recent examples.