Lame duck or dead duck !!

Bureaucrats, as is their wont, spend hours speculating their future and that of the Government's during any political crisis. After a meeting of the Committee of Secretaries last week, a senior IAS officer came out with his own interpretation of the usage "lame-duck" while walking down the Cabinet Secretariat's corridors. He suggested that a lame-duck could as well turn out to be a dead-duck !! Is a lame-duck Government in the offing ?

IAS versus IFS

Vice-President Hamid Ansari who is also ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha has sought the services of an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer having UN experience as the new Secretary General in place of incumbent Yogendra Narain who is demitting office on the last working day of August. A 1965 batch IAS officer, Yogendra Narain had retired as Defence Secretary in 2002 and soon after became Secretary-General of the Rajya Sabha.

The IAS officers have raised their ante !! Ansari, who is himself a retired IFS officer having served in the UN as India's representative, perhaps has the noble intention of raising Rajya Sabha proceedings to international standards. But the IAS lobby says an IFS man will not be able to understand the nuances of "floor" politics during question and zero hours and debates in the House. As per convention,the Rajya Sabha Chairman is supposed to send a panel of names but the final decision will be made by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments (CCA).

Bureaucrats under siege

Officialdom is under threat. The latest trend is for MPs to snow the PMO with letters demanding probes into disproportionate assets of bureaucrats, serving or retired. The "babus" past and present are a bit unnerved. Some of the allegations provide juicy details. Some of them have been
close to a leading industrial house.

The Chief Vigilance Commissioner and the CBI chief are among the recipients of these letters. The targets are senior officers who are, or were, serving in economic ministries as well as Railways, Excise & Customs and Income- tax. One common allegation is that the children of all the officials under scrutiny are abroad, studying or making hay !!

Is this in-fighting within the services, settling of old scores or witch hunting ?

BSES to say Tata ?

Privatisations was always held out as an elixir.
But with huge bail-outs in steel, power and telecom, it is sad that privatisation is still touted as a mantra.

Take for instance the transfer of power facilities from the State-run Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) to reputed corporate entities !! Alas, the situation instead of improving has only worsened. Power theft reduction and hefty power bills have kept private players and resident welfare associations (RWAs) at loggerheads.

And now, the private entity, Anil Ambani-owned BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) wants a bail-out. It is facing a financial crisis as compared to Tata owned NDPL. BYPL is facing a shortfall of Rs 900 crores for current fiscal, despite the fastest increase in bulk supply tariffs. And now wants government support to tide over the cash crunch.

However, Sheila Dixit fearing public backlash has taken a stern view of the situation and reprimanded the officials of BYPL. The Delhi government is even contemplating transferring the distribution rights from BYPL to Tata Power, whose performance by its own submission is 'slightly better'.

Where is privatisation leading us ?

No more Pen-pushing, it is Pen drive !!

Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, (KMC) has finally put an end to the bureaucratic trend of pushing secret papers to the Prime Minister's office (PMO) in triple sealed covers. Replacing the seals are 'Pen drives,' that are used to send top secret files to the PMO. Since even the pen drive is password protected, it's not completely secured. He, therefore makes it a point to personally hand it over to the Prime Minister. Hats off to KMC !!

We stand united…?

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is in doubt !! Whether to continue holding hands with NDA or say
sayonara. BJD leaders are already in constant touch with Third Front leaders. And Telugu Desam
Chief, N Chandrababu Naidu, is trying to work on the suave Navin Patnaik, CM and BJD Chief.
Although Jayalalithaa is the leader of the Third Front, it is Naidu, and to some extent Amar
Singh who are endeavouring to forge a third alternative.

Shortages Galore

After onions and other essentials, it is now the turn of fertilizer. As always, the whipping
boy is Finance. What is required from Finance is Rs 50,000 crores as subsidy. And the
Chemical and Fertilizer Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan lost no time in assailing the "apathetic
attitude of the Finance Ministry. He predicted with the accuracy of an astrologer that
India is heading for a crisis and fertilizers would soon be sold in black market in the next
sowing season due to heavy shortage. Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, was an
interested and keen spectator. His only fear is that nothing should go wrong on the
agriculture front.

Absenteeism at the Top !!

Cabinet Meetings are no longer sacrosanct !! Or is it that the person presiding over the
Cabinet is not taken seriously ? Or, worse still, is he indifferent to such absenteeism ?
Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his disappointment, in his usual mild
manner, at the thin attendance in the meetings of the Cabinet & of the Group of Ministers
(GoM). This phenomenon of absenteeism became increasingly noticeable after the
Presidential election.
At least four senior ministers belonging to the Congress did not attend the last four Cabinet
meetings, while a number of meetings of GoM have been postponed because its members
claimed to have "more" pressing work. Strangely, among the 'absconders' are those who were
aspirants in the Presidential election. Perhaps, understandably, they are in mourning !!