After the appointment of D K Jain as Member of Lok Pal, search has started for the new Chief Secretary of Maharashtra.

The Central Government has decided that minimum ceiling shall be applied to casualty pensionary awards in case of Disability/Liberalized Disability/War Injury pension (i.e. total of service element plus disability/liberalized disability/war injury element as the case may be) in the Armed forces which shall be minimum of Rs 18,000 per month irrespective of degree of disability of the personnel. The amount of liberalized family pension, admissible to the child/children of Armed Forces personnel, shall also be subject to a minimum of Rs 18,000 per month.

Ms. Sudeshna Sen, IRAS 1997 batch, presently on deputation to NIFM, has been selected for deputation to NATRIP as Director (Finance & Administration) for a period of two years. Ms.Sen has earlier worked as Secretary, NCERT also.

Dr Sumit Goswami has been appointed as Counsellor (Defence Technology) in the Embassy of India’s  Defence Technology Wing in Washington DC.

Sekhar Deb Barman, Airport Director, Agartala under the Airports Authority of India has been repatriated to his parent cadre.

The tenure of Ms Veena Kumar Meena, Executive Director (ED) (North), Food Corporation of India has been extended upto June 30, 2019. She is a 1993 batch IAS officer of UP cadre.

Ms Supriya Devasthali has been appointed as Director in the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. She is a 2001 batch ICAS officer.

As many as nine IAS officers have been given new postings in Madhya Pradesh. Accordingly, Pankaj Rag has been appointed as Principal Secretary, Culture and Commissioner-cum-Director, Swaraj Sansthan and Trustee Secretary, Bharat Bhawan and Commissioner-cum-Director, Culture, Archaeology Archives  while Renu Tiwari was made Secretary, Revenue and Controller, Government Press and Mrs Veera Rana is ACS, Sports & Youth Welfare. Similarly, Ashish Saxena has been appointed as Additional Commissioner, Urban Administration and Development; Mrs Anuma Shrivastava as Deputy Secretary, School Education; Mrs Neha Marvya as Deputy Secretary, Panchayat & rural Development; Mrs Usha Parmar as Additional Mission Director, NHM, Bhopal; Shashibhushan Singh as CEO, Bhopal Milk Federation and Chhote Singh was made Additional Commissioner (Revenue), Jabalpur Division in Madhya Pradesh.

Air Commodore Ajay Singh Pathania has assumed charge as Air Officer Commanding of Air Force Station, Jammu.

Ashok Lal Chatterjee has been promoted to the Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) notionally with effect from December 11, 2009. He is a retired ISS officer.

S K Ghildiyal, Director in Department of Higher Education, MHRD has been appointed as Part time Chief Vigilance Officer of EdCIL (India) Limited, a mini ratna Category I CPSE from March 15, 2019.

India is yet to appoint a Consul General at Sydney in Australia. Chandru Appar is the Acting Consul General at the Consulate.

Five officers have been posted to different Airports as Airport Director Grade-IV Deputy General Manager under the Airports Authority of India. Accordingly, Pramod Kumar Thakre has been posted to Hubli, while Anil Kumar Dwivedi was appointed to Gorakhpur and Sanjeev Namdevo Menghal is moved to Kandla. Besides, Kuniseedi M P was posted to Agatti and Krishna Kumar was appointed to Jorha; B K Jha to Kanpur; Prabhkar Mishra to Bhuntar and A A Ansari to Diu; B S Meena to Jaisalmer; Rajeev Punetha to Shimla; B K Mondal to Cooch Behar; Pradeep Kumar Bej to Khajuraho; S K Ahalya to Keshod; Sunil Maggirwar to Jalgaon and S K Sharna was posted to Ludhiana.

Three officers of APD Grade IV: Sanjay Tyagi, Khajuraho; Vikas Chandra, Jalgan and Safeena Najar Kandla have been repatriated to their parent cadre.

Election Commission of India (ECI) has cleared the name of  IPS officer ADGP RN Dhoke as the nodal officer for police affairs in Punjab for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections

Former Indian Police Service officer V Kamaraja is keen to contest Lok Sabha election from Haryana on BJP ticket. He is former 1987 batch IPS officer.

Zenith Birla (India) Limited has appointed Mrs Sanjivani Bhalchandra Shinde as Non- Executive Independent Director of the company.

Ms Neha Bagaria has been appointed as an Additional Independent Director of Future Consumer Ltd.

Sanjeev Singh Sengar has quit as Company Secretary of Morarjee Textiles.

Shyam Agrawal has quit as Independent Director of Bhageria Industries Limited.

Queer Budgeting !

Annual government budgeting exercise often reminds me  of more than three decades old incident of strange budget computations and predicament of a revenue officer, posted in not so lucrative tehsil. This officer, after release from army as Major, had been selected as Tehsildar and this event had excited his close relatives ,living in one of the most backward villages, to garland him profusely and to take him in a  procession around the village piloted by a rural marriage Band. Everyone was wondering and guessing the astronomical income ,which their proud son will be earning while working as a revenue officer. After training of two years, which also included a year as full-fledged naib-tehsildar, the villagers had noticed perceptible transformation in the prosperity and the living style of the family. His first posting as Tehsildar, in spite of best efforts including political pulls, was on the sideline as Tehsildar on special duty. Since ,duty was of audit of tehsils, the lack of influence and  corresponding no extra income, had not only dampened the spirit of the officer but also of the immediate relatives.

At long last, after a year of taking rounds of the politicians' houses, spending a lot on various other workers of the transfer and posting industry  ,our 125 kg friend ,got posting as Tehsildar Anandpur Sahib. This highly scenic, beautiful, religious place was also a gateway to the most famous Bhakra dam. The very first week of posting saw visits of eleven dignitaries, which entailed heavy expenditure of rupees 20000,besides wastage of time and resultant harassment of public because of non-availability of  officials/officers. Before joining the new station ,he had met his predecessor/s to assess the expected income at the new place. Even his discreet consultations with the tehsil officials on lucrative posts did not yield any encouraging dividends of expected illegal money. The officer was terrified. In the very first month the expenses on the high dignitaries and the state guests crossed one lac rupees. He had not only to spend the money but also had to be present to receive and see them off, as per the protocol. He wondered as to how these persons, who themselves had served the govt, could be so indifferent, apathetic and ruthlessly greedy, as not to spend a single penny on their luxurious and lavish stay at the mercy of the revenue officials. Govt provided only a fraction of the expenditure  on the state guests, which was never claimed and reimbursed to the officials ,who generally spent it out of the  bribe money.

After three months of posting, the debt on the Tehsil mounted to more than one lac, besides actual payments made of about 2 lacs. Tehsildar was worried that he had spent so much ,but in return no extra money was going to his coffers. He was restless not only on this account but also because of the visits of VIPs at odd times and also because of  the off the cuff demands of their family members and accompanying staff. He wrote a letter to the financial commissioner revenue. ''Respected sir, i am indebted to your goodself for posting me as Tehsildar of important Tehsil and it is my privilege to serve the department under your dynamic and honest leadership. Anandpur sahib, being a world renowned religious place and Nangal Township being  a gateway to Bhakra dam, lot many dignitaries visit the area frequently. Lot of money is to be spent to properly look after their boarding and lodging. There is no provision in the govt budget to incur such expenditure. No dignitary has ever paid even a single penny, even after fully knowing that they were not entitled for all the luxuries. So all the money is spent out of the fleecing of the innocent citizenry, in other words called' bribe money'. The area being very poor, even we fall short of this money, which is forcing us to resort to borrowing and getting things on credit. The income is much less than the expenditure. Sir, it is, therefore, requested that either the expenses must be borne by the govt or i may be transferred to some other Tehsil''. Financial Commissioner Revenue was about to mark the letter down without reading it, but it was written 'very very important' at its top in red ink. He was not impressed at the brazen impudent straightforwardness of the officer. He asked about the vacancy position of Tehsildars and immediately posted him as' Principal Patwar school Jalandhar'. My friend rued his tactlessness as long as he was in service as he had to languish as Principal for about 2 years, before he could get back lucrative post. The system has not changed a bit.

Surinderjit Singh Sandhu, Amritsar.

Record Keeping the government offices

Information regarding the list of pensioners, who are receiving pension from Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration under jurisdiction of Pay and Accounts Office Code 071383, issued by CGHS card in CGHS covered cities across India as also the list along with their details such as names, designation, CGHS card number, date of issue, etc. was sought . The Respondent expressed his inability to address the issues raised by the Appellant and stated that since issuance of CGHS cards was decentralized, no specific data was available with them. The CIC noted that the DoPT constituted a Task Force for the effective implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act. The CIC expressed serious concern about the state of recordkeeping within the CGHS and directed the Director, CGHS to depute a team of officials to enquire into the entire matter and provide information to the Appellant. The CIC directed that a comprehensive and robust policy for digitization of its records to be evolved and implemented within a time bound manner for the ease and convenience of all concerned.

Comments

The implementation of section 4 of the RTI Act remains a dream which is yet to be realised in most of the government departments. The Department of Personnel and Training of the Government of India had constituted a Task Force for the effective implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act. As a part of this Task Force, a sub group on ‘Guidelines for Digital Publication under RTI supporting Proactive Disclosure of Information’ held a one day consultation on ‘Formulating guidelines for digital publication under RTI supporting proactive disclosure of information’. Hopefully, the departments should start implementing the same in the right earnest.

Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is an expert on RTI matters and has co-authored the books RIGHT TO INFORMATION - LAW AND PRACTICE and PIO’s guide to RTI. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at the link: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/

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