Taking up the cudgels

ROHINI Sindhuri Dasari, an 2009-batch IAS officer of the Karnataka cadre, may have inadvertently joined a growing list of powerful women officers of Karnataka, including D Rope and Sonia Narang, who not only broke through the glass ceiling but also made a mark by standing up to the senior bureaucracy and politicians, when they came in the way of good work. The young Deputy Commissioner of Hassan district is going up against the government for transferring her prematurely. She believes short tenures come in the way of development. But there’s more to the story. The fight appears to be basically about the sanctioning of a tender worth Rs 11.75 crore by a local politician and minister in the State, A Manju, to his favourite. Manju, along with other Congress leaders, has complained against Dasari in the past too. But the rift between the two deepened over the tender for the construction of a viewer’s gallery atop Vindhyagiri for the Mahamastakabhisheka event in February. While Manju had insisted on handing over the work to Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd, Dasari had decided to hand it over to the Public Works Department. This is not the first time she has been a victim of a premature transfer. Her transfer from Mandya, where she was posted as Zilla Panchayat CEO, was rather sudden too. Several like- minded individuals and organisations had written to the Chief Minister to revoke her transfer in the interest of the district’s development. The Congress which is fighting an electoral battle with the BJP apparently does not have time to listen to the upright officer.