With Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and senior ministers frequently training guns on ineffective babus for the governance lapses, the Uttar Pradesh Government appears set for a fresh bureaucratic overhaul.
After the CM and Azam Khan, it was SP chief Mulayam Singh’s turn on Wednesday. “Afsar kaam nahi kar rahe hain”(the officers are reluctant to work), lamented the Yadav chieftain, while addressing party workers here. He went to the extent of directing the CM to remove all the district magistrates.
At a meeting chaired by PWD Minister Shivpal Yadav, his Principal Secretary Arvind Singh Dev and the Chief Engineer fought over the delay in releasing funds for road construction. Nearly `5000 crore has been released, but no work could be seen, said the minister, who left the meeting in a huff.
“Yes, it is true that the next date of budget session has been declared as February 14, but unfortunately the funds of the 2012-13 budget have not been utilised. There are many departments where only less than 50 per cent of the funds have been released. And where the funds have been fully released, they have not been utilised,” a senior IAS officer said.
On his part, Akhilesh had recently regretted that the IAS officers were misleading him on many issues and were reluctant to work. This, despite the punitive transfers the officers are subjected to every now and then. It was last week that the CM removed two key officers, IDC Anil Kumar Gupta and Noida Authority CEO Sanjiv Sharan.
While SP leaders often point to BSP-loyalist officers for stalling government projects, it is widely known that, soon after assuming office, the party had installed a new DGP and Chief Secretary, besides effecting more than 500 transfers, mostly of IAS and IPS officers.
With the government’s first year drawing to a close in March, the ruling party’s desperation is getting louder.
Moreover, the SP leadership has announced its ‘mission 2014’ of winning around 50 Lok Sabha seats to don a bigger role in Delhi. The party knows that if the UP Government fails to deliver, its post-general elections plans will remain on paper.