Servants of people

Politicians may be thick-skinned when it comes to complaints from their constituencies, but are extremely touchy when it comes to a “perceived” lack of respect and courtesy from their bureaucratic underlings.

Following several complaints from MPs and MLAs, the department of personnel and training has issued a standard procedure to government employees on how to communicate with the people’s representatives.
In the circular issued to all ministries, departments and PSUs, personnel secretary Alka Sirohi has suggested
that officials attend to any communication from an MP promptly. The communication should be acknowledged
within 15 days and must be acted upon within 15 days of sending the acknowledgement. It remains to be seen
whether babus adhere to this latest “do’s and don’ts” firman from above. Babus fall in line.

Facing the Heat
You cannot take on both, a senior minister and his most favoured adviser, and survive. But senior Kerala cadre officer and former Sebi member K.M. Abraham apparently forgot the first rule of survival when a few months ago he wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alleging that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, his adviser Omita Paul and Sebi chief U.K. Sinha had been lenient towards certain corporates. Few were surprised therefore when the finance ministry publically rubbished the senior IAS officer’s allegations.
Mr Abraham continues to face the heat. Apart from being sent back to his home state, sources say that the finance ministry, no doubt under instructions from the very top, has served a show-cause notice to Kerala chief secretary P. Prabhakaran, demanding to know why action should not be taken against Mr Abraham for violating service rules.

Undeserved Wait
Until recently Haryana IAS officer Anita Chaudhary was considered a high-flyer having held senior positions in the Cabinet secretariat and the home and defence ministries, among others. Ms Chaudhary, a 1976-batch officer, was special secretary in the home ministry, one of the few women officers in what was considered largely a male bastion. Last year she was named secretary of the land resources department in the ministry of rural development.
Babu circles were surprised recently when in a major reshuffle at the Centre, and barely a year into her new job, Ms Chaudhary was put on compulsory wait. Her place has been assigned to mining secretary Subramanyam Vijay Kumar, Ms Chaudhary’s batchmate from the Himachal Pradesh cadre. Naturally, everyone seems to have a theory on this development, but don’t expect them to share it.