Specialists have always gotten the raw end of the stick as far as their importance goes. So engineers in the ministry for roads are currently unhappy with babus taking over and sidelining them. Technocrats are upset that civil servants are interfering in what they consider are technical matters for which babus do not possess the requisite qualifications.

Sources say that while the national highway networks are set to increase by 10,000 km, the ranks of engineers are depleting at an alarming rate. Currently, 70 posts of road engineers in the ministry are lying vacant. The delay is due more to the tendency of bureaucrats to park themselves even in areas that call for technical expertise.
Babu watchers say the ministry is deliberately creating posts for administrative service officers. Though the dwindling of specialist cadre does not bode well for the future, they say, the ministry seems to be unconcerned.

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Taint no bar
Punjab may not be the only state to face a shortage of state administrative officers, but it has certainly found a novel solution. Apparently the state has 288 sanctioned posts of Punjab Civil Service (PCS) officers, but currently has only 160. The state bigwigs have recently been hiring, or rather rehiring, retired PCS babus — re-inducting them as additional deputy commissioners, sub-divisional magistrates and assistant tax and excise commissioners on contract. But it is not this that rankles the rest of the state’s babus. Apparently some of these re-hired babus have tainted pasts, but somehow this aspect has been ignored by the appointing committee headed by state chief secretary S.C. Aggarwal.
Interestingly, these retired babus are rejoining in positions lower than those they occupied during service. However, sources say the state government has now directed the Punjab Public Service Commission to promote some of the eligible PCS babus.

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Holy cows
While it may seem like another way to tighten the screws on corrupt babus, the move to have a committee of bureaucrats deal with complaints of corruption and financial bungling against senior babus in public sector undertakings and financial institutions is seen also as a move to clip the powers of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
The decision has, in effect, placed about 1,000 babus of some 240 public sector undertakings and 40 banks, insurance companies and financial institutions outside the purview of CVC. The committee is headed by Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar. Sources say that this order effectively creates a new class of “holy cows” who cannot be touched.
By Dilip Cherian