Where three would be considered a crowd, no less than 23 candidates appeared for the chairmanship of Steel Authority of India (SAIL). The present Chairman, SK Roongta, retires in May 2010.
Arvind Singh Dev (IAS, 1983, UP) sought Court intervention. The latter directed the PESB to entertain Dev’s candidature. He had pointed out that the PESB advertisement for the post had a flaw. It asked bureaucrats who were Additional Secretaries to apply. Dev argued that the advertisement was silent on whether those drawing salaries equivalent to that of an Additional Secretary could apply. This created a furore in bureaucratic circles and those senior to him are reportedly upset at being left out. It is being discussed whether they too should resort to legal intervention and redeem their bureaucratic honour!
However, insiders reveal that anyone below the rank of Additional Secretary will not be acceptable to the top honchos in the Steel Ministry.
Bravo, Bhave!
The show of objectivity and transparency is a mere cover for promotion of personal interest. Rules and regulations and penal provisions appear to be in place only for the hapless common man.
When CB Bhave was heading National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL), the organisation was discovered to be involved with three major scams – the IPO scam, the DSQ software share scam and the Rajnarayan Capital Market Services Ltd (RCMSL) scam. All these cases were probed by the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Then, as luck would have it, Bhave became Chairman of SEBI. Now, how could it be that Bhave would be found guilty in the scams? He wasn’t. He emerged “untainted” in each case.
Eyewash at IGNCA
It is not an unusual practice for those in the labyrinth of government to do nothing until an issue boils over. If only someone had decided to pull up socks at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), an autonomous unit under the Ministry of Culture, the administrative set-up would have seen a massive upheaval.
Under the guise of promoting art and culture, what happens there is close to maladministration and fraud which the media, including our columns, have been exposing for long. IGNCA’s Advisory Board is filled with redundant bureaucrats with questionable track records. Insiders openly ask how the Centre expects to benefit from Board members like C Garekhan, a veritable fossil, and Anil Baijal, an uninspiring administrator known to have thrived on lucrative assignments because of political connections.
It is also said that Jyotinder Jain, Member Secretary, openly flouts rules and misuses funds. Recently, one Sohan Singh Saini was appointed a consultant for three months to a section that is well-staffed. Most glaring is that a contractual employee has been made Head of Division with the financial authority of a regular employee. And there are reports of widespread irregularities in the appointments of professors and associate professors.
In what is seen as a feeble attempt at a cover-up, Aditi Mehta, former Joint Secretary of IGNCA, has reportedly been sent on leave before repatriation. But does that resolve the issue or absolve the retired bureaucrats of connivance in the corruption and maladministration in IGNCA?
Rules bent for Noreen Naqwi
Ever since Noreen Naqwi assumed charge as acting DG of AIR (through a clever sleight of hand by CEO BS Lalli), she has been in the news. Though the Prasar Bharati Board appointment specified that her qualifying period had to be regularized as per rules, it is known to all that no such rule existed nor was there any provision to have it amended for one person. However, this has now been done.
The Department of Personnel & Training, which had several times earlier turned down Naqwi for lack of rules, finally succumbed to a Machiavellian plan. The rules have finally been bent for her and her “ad-hoc” posting is being regularized. She will be confirmed as DG, AIR. A way out was found by sending the file to the Law Ministry where it was opined that the rules could be bent.
But 30,000 staffers of Prasar Bharati with similar ad-hoc postings have not had their cases reviewed. Senior and competent Programme Officers have spent more than 15 years in the same slot. Not only that, where tribunals or courts have given favourable judgments, Prasar Bharati and the I&B Ministry have resorted to appeals despite being on weak legal ground.
