Lucknow: In what seems to be the most recent flare-up between the forms and the political government in Uttar Pradesh, public works division (PWD) minister Jitin Prasada has written a letter to his principal secretary, Narendra Bhooshan, accusing him of “supervisory laxity” in not submitting a progress report on restore of roads broken as a consequence of rain within the state.
Within the letter dated 1 November, which ThePrint has seen, Prasada claimed that regardless of directions issued by him throughout a assessment assembly held on the PWD headquarters in Lucknow on 28 October, the principal secretary (PWD) had not shared the main points of the progress on street repairs.
“[I]t is a topic of absolute remorse that until November 1, 2022, you haven’t shared the main points of the progress which denotes supervisory laxity of your work. Therefore, a clarification on this regard be sought from the engineer-in-chief (improvement and HOD) and be introduced by night in the present day,” the letter reads.
The letter has additionally been marked to S.P. Goyal, extra chief secretary to the Chief Minister, and PWD engineer-in-chief (improvement and HOD) Sandeep Kumar.
Notably, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, after chairing a high-level assembly on 6 October, had ordered that every one the roads within the state be repaired and made pothole-free by 15 November.
ThePrint tried to achieve the minister and the Principal secretary (PWD) for his or her feedback on the letter through calls and textual content messages, however didn’t obtain a response till the time of publishing this report. This text will probably be up to date as soon as a response is acquired.
This isn’t the primary time tensions have arisen between UP ministers and Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers within the state. On 4 July, deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak pulled up extra chief secretary (medical and well being) Amit Mohan Prasad over two deceased medical doctors being ‘transferred’, amongst different alleged discrepancies.
In a separate controversy, the state authorities on 19 July eliminated Prasada’s officer on particular obligation (OSD) Anil Kumar Pandey and 5 different PWD officers over irregularities within the switch technique of engineers.
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Letter adopted ‘3-hour assembly’
Sources within the PWD instructed ThePrint that the assembly held on Friday was presided over by the minister and the engineer-in-chief (improvement and HOD), engineer-in-chief (rural roads), engineer-in-chief (design/planning), superintending engineers answerable for all 18 divisions, and a few government engineers.
“The assembly was held in two components. The primary half was held within the afternoon and it went on for about 2.5-three hours whereas the second half began within the night. The principal secretary needed to depart from the assembly, apparently due to one other assembly within the Chief Minister’s Workplace (CMO),” stated a supply within the PWD division.
Elaborating on the instructions issued in 28 October assembly, Prasada’s letter mentions that it was “directed that the monetary approvals for all works for pothole removing/particular repairs/improve be issued until October 31, 2022 and a day by day report in regards to the progress of the marketing campaign for pothole removing be shared [with the minister’s office] until 5 pm”.
Additional, it was directed that “the monetary approvals for work associated to all particular repairs price over Rs 40 lakhs be submitted until October 31, 2022 and that progress of all monetary approvals vis-a-vis the restore of the roads broken as a consequence of rains, be displayed on LED screens [at the PWD headquarters] zone-wise.”
PWD switch controversy
In July, after the switch of round 400 engineers from the PWD, a big chunk of the workforce alleged irregularities within the course of, together with switch of useless engineers and several other engineers being transferred to 2 or three districts. On 12 July, the UP CM directed for a committee to be fashioned to look into the alleged anomalies.
After the probe committee report revealed a number of anomalies within the switch course of, the UP authorities, on 19 July, eliminated the PWD minister’s OSD and suspended 5 different officers. The probe committee had discovered that no approval was taken from the CMO for the switch of the chief engineer who was posted with the CM’s nod and that the transfers exceeded the necessary restrict even because the sources near the minister had felt that no guidelines have been violated.
Prasada had then reached Delhi to transient the BJP excessive command in regards to the removing of his OSD and suspension of 5 officers.
In July, state jal shakti minister Dinesh Khatik despatched his resignation letter to Union residence minister and senior BJP chief Amit Shah alleging corruption in his division and that his orders weren’t being adopted by officers in his division as a result of he’s a Dalit.
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‘Pending promotions’
In one other improvement, the UP Engineers Affiliation has expressed issues over 120 promotions allegedly being withheld by the workplace of the principal secretary.
Talking to ThePrint, Ashish Yadav, basic secretary of the UP Engineers Affiliation instructed ThePrint: “Orders to verify the promotions to about 87 engineers to the posts of government engineers, 15 to the posts of superintendent engineers and a few to the posts of chief engineers are pending to be issued by the workplace of the principal secretary. The PWD minister would additionally admire that the orders ought to be issued by the principal secretary’s workplace as quickly as potential.”
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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