ISHAN KARAN
The arrest of Chief Engineer Virendra Ram and the leakage of video of a top official doing file work in the house of a suspect of blatant corrupt practices in Jharkhand have sent shock waves throughout the bureaucracy. To add fuel to the fire, the arrest of Manish Sisodia after a gap of three months of his summons by the CBI when everything seemed to have cooled down in Delhi, as also interrogation of Arvind Kejriwal has left many apprehensive of their future. And the recent ED action against land mafias under the leadership of an ex-Deputy Commissioner is further indications of days to come. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If grapevine within the bureaucracy is to be believed, we will be reading many more interesting headlines in the coming days over our morning cup of tea.
However, thick skin always remains thick. Despite everything, the Jharkhand bureaucracy is beyond redemption. Recently the Jharkhand high court had issued a warrant of arrest against a bureaucrat for non-compliance of the court’s order. The issue here is not issuance of warrant. The issue here is the attitude of this bureaucrat. The officer held some very important portfolios earlier at the field as well as the secretariat level. Everywhere he has set up many new ‘milestones’!
Even after all the recent happenings, nothing is moving at various levels. It is business as usual for the babudom. Some babus are too scared to open their mouth for gratification while at the same time they don’t want to dispose any juicy file without gratification. For them, it is a Hobson’s choice but their priorities are very clear, no doubt about that. And there is another group within the bureaucracy who are supposed to be honest with their holier than cow attitude. They are sitting on lucrative posts and enjoying all the perks and comforts simply by keeping their political masters happy. Here the modus operandi is to send all the files to their political bosses and thus enable them to do whatsoever they want to do. No initiative, no dash, no drive on the part of these bureaucrats. … so much for the steel frame of Jharkhand. The net result is that nothing is moving in Jharkhand administration. Everything has come to a standstill. God only knows when Jharkhand will see the ‘Achche din’.
