Are there no capable babus to head the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)? The government is now considering relaxing the eligibility criteria in the hope of a better response. This sounds all too familiar, since there’s a similar situation at the National Highway Authority of India. Although the civil aviation ministry received six applications, none of the candidates could meet the basic criteria. The age limit is also posing a problem. Meanwhile, since December last year, the DGCA is being run by an additional secretary-ranked IAS officer, E.K. Bharat Bhushan. Hopefully, someone somewhere within the bureaucratic mountain will realise the need to speed up the appointment.
Nitish’s clean-up
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar clearly is a man of his word. Some months ago he had threatened to confiscate properties of babus facing corruption charges and convert them into schools. It was no empty threat. The Bihar government has confiscated the properties of three IAS officers — S.S. Verma, Raghuvansh Kunwar and Girish Kumar — after corruption charges against them were proved. And what should send shivers down the collective spines of babus elsewhere is that the states of Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh too have made similar laws to check corruption in babudom. Hopefully, other states will follow suit. Corrupt babus now have every reason to be afraid.
Running for cover
The usually volatile politics of Uttar Pradesh, with its attendant crime and corruption, has played havoc with many babu careers. Most recently the multi-crore medical scam (which involved a couple of murders as well) has got babus running for cover. So much so that no babu is willing to become director of the National Rural Health Commission, putting the state government in a fix. The scam broke open with the murder of Dr B.P. Singh, former chief medical officer, earlier this year. Since then either officials have failed to take over (as in the case of A.K. Goel) or made a hasty exit after appointment (as in the case of Mr Goel’s replacement, Mohammad Mustafa). Five “full-time” directors have come and gone in probably as many months. Meanwhile, the Union health ministry refuses to release Rs 2,462 crore unless a full-time mission director is appointed. But as of now, the Mayawati government does not seem to know the way forward.
Love them, hate them, ignore them at national peril, is the babu guarantee and Dilip’s belief. Share
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