Route change
Amid talks of a Cabinet reshuffle soon, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent directive to surface transport minister C.P. Joshi to work on restructuring the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has set tongues wagging.
For a minister believed to be unsure of retaining his portfolio, the call to action may provide the right
amount of impetus to make the long-delayed changes in the agency. This was also the theme visited at a recent meeting between Mr Joshi and a delegation of private road developers.
Obviously, the first major task for Mr Joshi and his babu cohorts is to appoint a full-time chairman for the NHAI. The post has been vacant for more than six months, since the retirement of Brijeshwar Singh in December last year.
According to sources, among the various suggestions now being discussed at the ministry is opening the post to technocrats. Mr Joshi and transport secretary R.S.W. Gujaral (who is also acting chief of NHAI) are keen to do away with the tradition of appointing a bureaucrat to head the nodal agency. A suggestion made by private road developers to assign specific tasks to separate members of NHAI is also being looked at closely. Sources say the ministry has forwarded these suggestions to the Prime Minister’s Office. It is widely expected that these proposed changes will be approved.
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Home calling
The babu who initiated several key reforms at the Intellectual Property (IP) office has reportedly quit mid-way through his five-year term and is reverting to Kerala, his home cadre, and leaving Delhi’s babudom rather bemused by the decision.
According to sources, P.H. Kurian, the controller general of patents, designs and trademarks, is a much-sought-after man in Kerala where the Congress has just returned to power. Apparently, Mr Kurian will return to the state as principal secretary and is only waiting for the Centre, his present employer, to relieve him. Still, there is some speculation that Mr Kurian, who introduced transparency in the system of granting patents, fell afoul of the powers that be during his tenure. There is also some apprehension that Mr Kurian’s mid-tenure exit from the IP office will disrupt the reform process he had initiated with some success. But for now, clearly he seems to be hearing only the call of his home state.
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