*Representational Picture Courtesy ndtv.com
Chief Minister Raghubar Das is a particularly busy man these days.Apart from the grim strike launched by the magistrates across the state and crippling power shortage in rural Jharkhand,he has some some members of his government to take care off too.
With the state Cooperative Secretary Puja Singhal in a meeting of the Department's committee on November 10 deciding to transfer 180 officials who were posted at one place for the past three years,Minister Randhir Kumar Singh is pulling all out efforts to ensure that they were not transferred.
Already Singh had put a block in issuance of notification of their transfer till March 31,2018.As a result,Singhal has failed to get them transferred,triggering a silent conflict between her and the Minister.Another Minister of Civil Supply Department Saryu Rai was in a state of conflict with his Secretary who preferred not to abide by his order to show him official files.
Both Singh and Rai are learnt to be critical of these Babus who allegedly kept them in dark on many issues of governance.Das was unable to deal with this conflict of interest leaving governance in a state of fix.
Das's another wing of bureaucracy dominated by Jharkhand Public Service Commission officers of both Class I and II rank were on strike since November 16 in protest against the arrest of the Circle Officer(CO) Manoj Tiwari on charges of taking Rs 5000 bribe.He was caught red handed by the state Anti Corruption Bureau sleuths on November 16 at Barkattha in Hazaribagh district.
About 1000 JPSC officers, most of whom were BDOs,COs,Additional District Magistrate and magistrates,have proceeded on mass leave paralysing the function of the state government."The scene is so bad that there was no gazetted officer ready to sign a certificate of death",said a lawyer.
The Chief Minister's Public Relations Department officers have not released any photograph of the strikers.However,a Magistrate told www.jharkhandstatenews.com that it was unfair to arrest CO on charges of accepting bribe of a small sum of Rs five thousand."It sounds funny in this state where this junior officer was arrested and senior officers of the IAS rank who take lakhs and crores remain beyond the reach of the investigators.We want this CO to be released from jail as soon as possible."
Though the CM who leaves no opportunity to make Ghosna(announcement) was keeping mum,the agitationists have declared that they will remain on strike till December 19 and chalk out their future plan on November 20,2017.