Gfiles’
November issue is a package of diverse issues like unemployment, UP politics,
urbanisation, disclosure of black money, the 50th year of Haryana
and an interview with former Home Secretary GK Pillai. Unemployment is a major
challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Fast moving developments in the
technology world are leading to shrinking job prospects. So what should be
done?
November 9, 2016
MSMEs are the spine of the nation’
KK
Jalan is a 1982-batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre. An MPhil in Mathematics and
Public Administration from Punjab University, Chandigarh. Hard task master,
efficient and honest, Jalan was the first IAS officer to serve five districts
of Haryana as Deputy Commissioner-Bhiwani, Rewari, Sonepat, Karnal and
Faridabad.
It’s time for conscious public service delivery
Working on the concept of
institutional ethics as a possible solution to the menace of corruption in
government, the IC Centre for Governance looked around for a value-based
organisation in public governance. The search was very tricky, like the
proverbial looking for a needle in a haystack. The hunt was as difficult, if
not more, as in the corporate sector. Finally, we narrowed down to two
government organisations, one of which was the Delhi Metro.
Natural Cities : An innovative urban agenda
The third UN Conference
on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (UN-Habitat III) convened at
Quito, Ecuador, from October 17 to 20, 2016. The aim of this conference was to
promote a new model of urban development, integrating sustainability, equity,
welfare and shared prosperity. Out of this conference emerged a ‘New Urban
Agenda’ that calls for environmentally sustainable and resilient urban
development to withstand the unprecedented threats from unsustainable
consumption and production patterns, loss of biodiversity, pressure on
ecosystems, pollution, natural and man-made disasters and climate change.
IDS, a misconceived idea
The Income Disclosure
Scheme (IDS) ended on September 30, 2016 and the gains and losses from it can
now be assessed. According to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, there had been a
disclosure of Rs. 65,250 crore income with likely tax mop of nearly Rs. 30,000 crore.
There is jubilation about the results, which have been compared to the outcome
of VDIS (Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme) of 1997 where nearly Rs. 33,697
crore were declared with a tax collection of Rs. 9,760 crore.
The great Samajwadi soap opera
The clash of interests in Uttar Pradesh’s Samajwadi
family isn’t due to ideological differences. Like in a normal, extended joint
family, the clash is for the control of cash. Over the past many years, before
the arrival of Akhilesh Yadav in politics, his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and
uncle Shivpal built up a system of clientele. Politics for them, like all
politicians of every hue and colour, was meant for generating resources through
patronage and protection. The resources thus generated were ploughed back into
party politics to keep them ahead of their political rivals like the BSP and
BJP.
Why is the RSS angry with Shivraj?
How
dare he say that and that too two years ahead of the assembly elections?” fumed
a senior RSS leader when a journalist told him about Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s
assurance to industrialists from across the globe in the concluding session of
the two-day Global Investors Summit (GIS) that concluded on October 23 in
Indore. Announcing that the next GIS would be held in February 2019 in Indore,
Chief Minister Chouhan assured the delegates that he would preside over the
next investors’ meet too.
PM pats Manohar Lal’s back, praises Haryana for all-round development
For
the first time any State in the country celebrated its 50th anniversary
in such a grand manner like Haryana did on November 1 to mark its Swarna
Jayanti Utsav. The event was held at Tau Devi Lal Stadium, Gurugram, in the
presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Lavishly praising Haryana Chief
Minister Manohar Lal’s efforts in undertaking several initiatives
undertaken by him for the development of the State, Modi gave a pat on his back
saying Haryana has the potential to work as a ‘growth engine’ to accelerate the
pace of development of the country.
The anatomy of surgery
These
days the only topic of conversation in the Indian sub-continent and the
surrounding SAARC region is Surgery. The last time when surgery was the cause
celebre was in ancient India when Sushruta discovered the art of plastic
surgery to reconstruct the noses of unfaithful females, cut off by suspicious
husbands. The lead was given by the fiery Lakshmana, who did not relish the
sexual overtures made by the dusky, Dravidian featured Sroopnakha, the princess
of Srilanka, and tried to palm her off on his elder brother, the calm
Ramachandra.
The fair administrator
When
Gopal Krishna Pillai (67) joined as Sub Collector in Kollam (then Quilon) in
July 1974, his first job after passing out from Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Academy of Admini-stration (LBSNAA), the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)
hardly offered a decent lifestyle. Pillai drove to office on his brother’s
scooter and lost his first half’s salary because there was a long queue of
officers joining that day and his turn came only in the afternoon. For the
first two years, he and his wife, Sudha, also a 1972 Kerala cadre IAS, lived
from hand-to-mouth.
Worrying times ahead
Despite pricy valuations of
Indian market at around 20 times FY17 earnings, most of the analysts I have
talked to are not too worried and feel that the market will continue to receive
steady flow of funds due to post-monsoon impact, on-demand scenario coupled with
Seventh Pay Commission largesse and steadily improving rural incomes, all time
high forex reserves, continued emphasis on reforms with GST already on road to
implementation, continuation of softer monetary policy of RBI in view of
softening inflation in the growth inflation dynamics, and expectations of
stability and improvement in corporate earnings as a result of steady growth in
GDP.
Health cultures
Traditional health cultures everywhere are founded on a basic premise:
that the human organism is naturally geared for health. Since the body is made
from within, it is fully capable of setting right most of its internal
problems. Whether it is the human body or the cosmic body, both are made up of
five elements — earth, water, fire, air and space. Each one of us is made up of
the very same building blocks. But what makes each one of us unique? The answer
is simple: our software. The five elements in each of us carry their own unique
memory imprint.
Varun honey trapped out of race
Varun Gandhi, the grandson
of Mrs Indira Gandhi, is the new scapegoat of Indian politics. Even his mother,
who is trained in the game of politicking, could not help him this time. Varun
was a face for the Chief Minister of UP. Even in BJP, the top leadership was a
bit worried with the daring steps he took to claim the leadership. But, then
events overtook his efforts. First, he was caught with chickengunia and then
there was a honey trap where his photographs were circulated by unknown sources
through Whatsapp. This came when opinion polls were indicating he was becoming
a leading face of saffron politics in UP. Varun though is undeterred by the
dirty political game. In the last two-and-a-half years, he has helped
debt-ridden farmers of the State with financial aid of Rs. 18 crore.
Interestingly, Rs. 1.5 crore was from his own funds and Rs. 16.5 crore was
collected by him in form of charity from local elites. To identify genuinely
distressed farmers, he set up three indicators to select the crisis-hit
farmers. These included farmers who had defaulted on their loan repayment,
whose crops had been destroyed in a row during three crop cycles, and those who
had no fixed assets. Subsequently, 3,662 farmers were freed from debt. But,
Varun’s team noticed that 15 per cent of farmers freed from debt were again in
loan trap. He opted then for a different approach. He decided to make a website
having details of such farmers. The site was connected to affluent persons.
After touring more than 20 UP districts, Varun analysed that most farmers were
burdened with a loan of Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh. The details were taken from
local banks and after investigation a list of beneficiaries was prepared.
Consequently, Varun rolled on his mission to provide a house to the needy. Till
now he has successfully built more than 100 such houses. But all his good work
has today come undone. BJP sources disclosed that for Varun, there seems now no
way ahead in BJP. Nobody is sure whether he will be given any
responsibility during UP assembly elections.
Rita Bahuguna in focus at Priyanka’s meet
There was an important
meeting convened in the last week of October by Priyanka Gandhi with her party
members. Congress leaders Gulam Nabi Azad, Raj Babbar, Sheila Dikshit and
Sanjay Singh were present in the meeting. A source revealed that a major topic
of discussion was the impact of Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s exit from the Congress in
favour of BJP. They also discussed why Rita left the Congress. This revealed
some new facts. It was disclosed that Rita was apprehensive of losing to
Mulayam Singh’s daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav, from Lucknow Cantonment in the
upcoming assembly election. Allegedly, Aparna is also stated to be in touch
with the BJP. Later, the Congress held a Brahmin conference and made Pramod
Tiwari’s daughter, Mona Mishra, in charge of it without including or consulting
Rita. It is also said that in the ‘Minority Conference’, the party did not
allow Rita to enter. Also, it was strategically decided to send major political
leaders to those districts through which Rahul Gandhi’s yatra was to pass so
that they could interact with the media during the rally. Rita was in charge of
Faizabad. When Rahul reached Faizabad, Rita was there to receive him. Sources
revealed that Rahul got furious on seeing her and asked her what was she doing
there. He also directed her to go back to Lucknow. Rita then decided that she
had no future in the Congress and made her way directly to Amit Shah’s house.
Rest is history.
Gadkari, the ‘smart’ minister
Nitin Gadkari not only has a grip on goings on in the BJP, but
also within the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. As he is a businessman
turned politician, he has tremendous business acumen. Also, he has very good
relations with the media. He knows what to leak in the media, and see the
reactions. This helps him not only to gauge people’s perception about various
things but also to send message to the right areas. An example of this was when
he announced about the ropeway transport system between ‘Dhaula Kuan and Manesar’
in Gurugram, Haryana. The media wanted to know about the details and Gadkari
directed them to his PS Vaibhav Dange. The reporters rushed directly to Dange,
who was totally unaware of any such plan. Dange contacted the officials of the
National Highway Authority to bring relevant files. The official were also
bewildered and responded that no such file was being prepared yet and that
there is no such plan with the NHAI. Media got flustered, but Gadkari was able
to send his message to the right place.
Manohar Lal blazes on triumphantly
Manohar Lal has travelled a
long way in Haryana within two years. He has completed two years as a Chief
Minister with flying colours. While the political fraternity was apprehending
that he will prove to be a non-starter, he has proved otherwise. He is not only
administering the State efficiently but also managing his political opponents
so smartly that his detractors are feeling helpless. Even the civil servants
are anxious to see his splendid performance as an administrator. He has
opened a CM’s window on web where he has addressed millions of complaints of
people of the State. Haryanvis file the complaints and action is taken
instantly. It’s happening for the first time in Haryana. He has learnt the art
of media management too. He called a press conference in Chandigarh on the
completion of two years of his government. He announced only 13 out of 50
schemes. Reporters asked him, “Why don’t you announce all 50 schemes”. He
replied that newspapers now-a-days don’t have much space to carry all the
schemes and I don’t want to get my news to be killed by just mentioning that CM
has announce 50 schemes without elaborating on the schemes. He even encouraged
reporters to ask questions in local language (read Punjabi) and replied also in
Punjabi. On November 1, on Haryana Golden Jubilee Celebrations at Gurugram,
even Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to be impressed with Manohar Lal for
organising a fabulous and memorable ceremony.
I am better than others!
Some officers are very sensitive about the prefix before
their names if they happen to be a doctor. If any notification by DoPT is
issued without prefix, they see to it that it is renotified with correction
though it does not change the status of the officer. It happened in the case of
Kshatrapati Shivaji, 1986-batch Maharashtra cadre IAS officer, who is India’s
new executive director at Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB). Twenty-four
days after an official order was issued, there was a “partial modification” of
the order. In a corrigendum, issued on October 28, which was dubbed as “Most
Immediate/Confidential”, it was said that “Shri Kshatrapati Shivaji” should be
read as “Dr Kshatrapati Shivaji”. Issued by the establishment office of the
DoPT and signed by a deputy secretary-ranked officer, the corrigendum was sent
to 20 different offices, including to the offices of the Cabinet Secretary and
Principal Secretary to the PM et al, following the usual official procedure.
The original order was issued on October 4. Shivaji is a civil engineer with an
M Tech degree in building science; he is an MA in economics and also holds two
additional degrees—one MBA and another PhD in management. Can an officer be a
better performer if he or she holds a PhD degree? And does the government need
to write Dr Y or Dr X, moment an officer gets a PhD degree. Instead, the
question should be whether the government should really be wasting so much time
and effort on such cosmetic efforts. An utter waste, no doubt, to pamper
inflated egos and a sense of entitlement! Shivaji must have insisted that a
corrigendum be issued, in the hope that his performance and dignity would
probably go up after adding the honorific ‘Doctor’. Getting posted as ED, ADB,
Manila, is not easy, particularly as the posting should have legitimately gone
to a Foreign Service officer. But, the IFS officers don’t serve in States’
districts and thus unable to cultivate politicians. Serving in districts is,
therefore, considered more important than serving in foreign countries. This
explains why the IFS is no longer considered a sought-after service.
Arundhati : Reward for keeping quiet
It’s
a serious exercise to choose a successor to a serving Chairman of Public Sector
Undertaking Banks. The way SBI Chief Arundhati Bhattacharya’s term was
extended, it appears the Department of Financial Services does not have a well
laid-down plan to appoint the Chairman of a country’s only prime bank. As per
the official brief extending her tenure, this will provide continuity at a time
when the process of consolidation of SBI subsidiary banks is going on. Earlier
this year, the Cabinet gave its nod to the merger of the State Bank of India
(SBI), its associate lenders and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) that would
make the State-owned lender a global-sized bank. But, the reason given for
extension of tenure is a misrepresentation of facts. The merger of banks is
procedural work; it’s not rocket science which can’t be performed by any other
seasoned banker. What was the compulsion of the Department of Financial
Services? Arundhati has been very soft to the industrialists who are very close
to the present dispensation. She came to the fame in the case of Vijay Mallaya,
who owed Rs 9,000 crore to the banks. She was furious and issued statement
after statement for the recovery from Mallaya. SBI tops the chart among the
banks as far as NPAs are concerned. But, who cares! It’s reported in the
banking circles that the extension was an award to Arundhati for keeping quite
on Rs 21000-crore loan to absconder Ananda Krishna, the Malaysian-based
promoter of Maxis group, who owns the Aircel Telecommunication network in
India. The Aircel business is in pipeline to be transferred to a Mumbai-based
Industrialist. It’s a business transfer and not a company take over. So the
business will move to another owner and company will remain as a skeleton. The
assest of the company is spectrum, which is pledged with the bank and the said
industrialist is purchasing spectrum only without paying to SBI. Only Arundhati
knows how to recover the loan from a skeleton. Keeping quiet and not uttering a
word definitely ‘deserves’ an extension!
We are open, but officially closed
Diwali
is by all means a bonanza festival, especially for Civil Servants of India.
Everybody who deals with the government waits for the festive season to meet
and greet Civil Servants. Civil Servants also anxiously await the auspicious
day to celebrate with those who can’t meet them in their official capacity.
Even after Narendra Modi’s taking over as Prime Minister nothing much has
changed in the foothills of Raisina. There are many officers who have evolved a
mechanism to deal with the palm greaser on Diwali; they have started locking
the main gate of their home on the day and the sentry has been informed to
brief that ‘sahib is out of town’. Sentry is not authorised to
accept flowers and any gifts. The CCTV surveillance in the residence area has
created a problem, but the greeters now don’t come in their Mercs; Ola and Uber
cabs have helped them to reach the destination without disclosing their
identity. This Diwali, one observed another peculiar situation. Senior Civil
Servants, who are serving on coveted posts in the Central Government and State
governments, evolved a new way to deal with the guests. They informed their
sentry to greet the guest and brief them that sahib is clearing
important files, or sleeping, or sitting with some very close family friends. The
sentry is also told to brief the guest that if he had come with Diwali gifts,
he may leave them and they will definitely reach the sahib. As reported
to gfiles, some businessmen who personally went to meet the officers
avoided handing over the gifts, but those who sent their senior assistants were
happy to deliver the gift to the sentry without troubling the sahib.
Servants of the system
It
was a tough task to organise Haryana’s 50th Year Golden Jubilee Celebrations at
Gurugram on November 1. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal wanted to make it
historically memorable, more so as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was
inaugurating the celebrations. Manohar Lal needed an officer who could deliver.
He chose KK Khandelwal, a 1985-batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, to lead the
organising team. Khandelwal seems to have proved that the Chief Minister was
right about his choice. How a senior officer, without making any show, can
organise such a gala function is a subject to study. The might of the
government was felt in Tau Devi Lal staudim where the function was organised.
Khandelwal did everything from producing video films, songs, posters, publicity
campaign, designing newspaper advertisements and making arrangements of high
standard at the stadium. Haryanvis must not have seen such a colourful,
peaceful and entertaining State festival. Khandelwal meticulously planned the
show and proved that if an opportunity and authority is delegated to an officer
without any interference, he can do wonders. He brought out a well-designed ‘Vision
and Ideas’ coffee-table book, which has a roadmap of the year-long
celebrations. In the end of the book, the credit carries the line of content
advisor as DS Dhesi, the Chief Secretary of Haryana, and the concept by Rajesh
Khullar, the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Haryana. Very well
educated, Khandelwal wants to maintain a low profile and remain away from the media
blitzkrieg. Khandelwal’s working style shows that he wants to prove that Civil
Servants are meant to serve the government and that they are performers in the
system; also, that they don’t belong to any political group or party and what
matters is how political bosses use their wisdom to motivate the available
machinery to complete any uphill task. Manohar Lal judiciously using his wisdom
against all political odds.
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