Bureaucrats face flak on VTI

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Former Madras high court judge K.P. Sivasubramaniam said he was upset over bureaucrats trying to find fault with the running of a private trust, which receives no grant from the state government, with no reason.

“Just because a retired IAS official was feeding them with wrong information, government officials should not finding fault with the existing administrators,” Justice Sivasubramaniam said a day after walking out of the governing council meet of 125-year-old Victoria Technical Institute that was set up to nurture handcraft talent in South India.

Sivasubramaniam pointed out that all construction activity at the VTI was being carried out after getting the approval of the council. “This being a private trust there is no need to float tenders for such activities,” he pointed out.

During Thursday’s meeting, N. Chandrasekharan, a council member raised preliminary objection about the legality and locus standi of government members to continue on the council.

He also said that IG of registration has held that VTI is a private society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975.

A. Elangovan, a private member and a retired IAS official, countered that the IG’s office has been bribed to give such a report. He said that a complaint has been lodged with the vigilance directorate and raids will be conducted at the IG’s office.

“That is when I intervened to say that three senior IAS officials and two deputy secretaries should not be listening to such statement. I also pointed out that some officials had manipulated records to show that there was no meeting of the council in the last three months.

It was the secretary of handloom who stood in the way of convening the meeting by refusing to sign the requisition for the month of June itself.

When the chairperson tried to scuttle the issue and refused to register the objection I walked out,” Justice Sivasubramaniam said.

He also denied the allegation that the present administration is corrupt.