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STATES: JHARKHAND
Caught In A Tangle
The turf war between ministers and bureaucrats in the
fledgling state has become a cause of tension for Chief Minister Babulal
Marandi
By Farzand Ahmed
 The
latest joke in Ranchi, capital of the six-month-old Jharkhand state, is
that the youthful Chief Minister Babulal Marandi is suffering from "ministrophobia",
or a fear of his own ministers. Every night he spends several quiet hours
in the courtyard of his bungalow to avoid phone calls from colleagues.
The joke, however, is far from being funny. The chief minister has been
continually embarrassed by the clashes between his ministers and state
bureaucrats.
It started when Urban Development Minister Bachcha
Singh, belonging to mafia-ridden Dhanbad, declared himself chairman of
the Ranchi Regional Development Authority (RRDA). Officials recall that
his men snatched away a file from a state secretariat staffer who was
on his way to deliver an order appointing BJP leader Nirbhay Kumar Singh
as the chairman. The minister overruled Nirbhay Singh's appointment and
anointed himself. "What's wrong with it?" a defiant Bachcha
Singh says. "I am the minister and unless I am the RRDA chairman
too there will be no coordination. Naturally, development schemes will
fail." As if that wasn't enough, Bachcha Singh went ahead and appointed
Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Vinod Kispota, his favourite officer, as the
vice-chairman of the organisation.
To make matters worse for the chief minister,
Energy Minister Lalchand Mahto has "appointed" himself the chairman
of the Patna-based Tenughat Vidyut Nigam (TVN). He was furious with officials
who pointed out that he could not combine two posts-as chairman he would
be heading a tribunal and as minister he would have to review his own
decision in case of a dispute. Mahto refused to budge or accept it as
unethical, citing the example of Laloo Prasad Yadav who, as chief minister
of Bihar, had appointed himself the chairman. It is another matter that
Laloo had vacated the post of chairperson when the anomaly was brought
to his notice. TVN, a Bihar Government-undertaking has a Rs 1,600-crore
power project near Bokaro in Jharkhand. Herein lay Mahto's interest.
The story does not end here. Excise Minister
Ramesh Munda got D.K. Tiwary removed as secretary in his department. Tiwary's
fault was that he had opposed his boss' "whimsical and illegal"
order to officially allow the sale of country liquor in open drums instead
of the regulation sealed pouches. Officials say that supplying country
liquor in open drums is dangerous as it can lead to adulteration. What
apparently irked Munda was that he wanted no licences to be granted without
his permission whereas Tiwary adhered to the rulebook. In no time, the
bureaucrat was shunted out and deputed to the Land Reforms Department.
There are several others who have constantly
been pressurising the chief minister to post "nice and cooperative"
officials in their departments. Public Works (Roads) Minister Sudesh Mahto
makes no bones about the fact that he got three secretaries ousted because
they were "incompetent". His contention: he wanted his officials
and engineers to change their "Bihari style of functioning".
Irrigation Minister Ram Chandra Kesari, irritated
by the way Irrigation Secretary R.S. Poddar functioned, used a simple
tactic to get rid of him-he got him transferred. He was not only "slow
and lacked information" about his department's activities, but was
also "more interested in the transfer and posting" of officials
and engineers under him. "So I got him transferred and replaced him
with an upright and efficient IAS officer, Mukhtiar Singh," says
Kesari.
There are many others among Marandi's 26 ministers,
including 10 belonging to alliance parties, who are causing him nightmares
with open clashes with bureaucrats. Invariably, they cite differences
stemming from "non-cooperation to hasten the pace of development"
or unwillingness to change the colonial style of functioning. Says Finance
Minister Mrigendra Pratap Singh: "Kutte ki dum to aap ek din mein
sidha nahin kar sakte (You can't straighten a dog's tail in a day). We
don't want any officer to sit over files and hamper work in the state
as delays breed corruption."
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