Vivek Kumar. (Express photo)
Amid a row between the Centre and the West Bengal government over coronavirus-related data from the state, the state Health Secretary has been replaced, officials said on Tuesday.
Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Vivek Kumar has been made the Environment Secretary, according to a notification dated May 11. Narayan Swarup Nigam, a 1998-batch IAS officer who held charge of the Transport Department, will replace Kumar.
Nigam will be replaced by Prabhat Misra, while Kumar will assume Misra’s erstwhile position, it was informed.
While the reason for Kumar’s sudden transfer is not clear, a source in the state Secretariat said it may have been the upshot of the 1990-batch IAS officer having found himself embroiled in a controversy over Covid data in the state.
The ruling TMC called it a “routine transfer”.
The development comes days after Kumar had written to the Union Health Secretary on April 30 and given the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the state at 931, even as his own department had put the number at 744 in the same day’s health bulletin.
After the letter became public, BJP, principal opposition in the state, accused the Mamata Banerjee government of fudging coronavirus-related data. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, engaged in a running feud with the state government since before the pandemic, also alleged that the government is fudging data.
Kumar is the third senior IAS officer to be transferred in recent weeks. Earlier, Manoj Agarwal, who was Principal Secretary, Food and Supplies; and Subrata Gupta, Principal Secretary, Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, were transferred to Fire and Emergency Services and Food Processing and Horticulture departments, respectively.
District magistrates of Darjeeling and Paschim Burdwan were also transferred in the same three-week period.
As news of Kumar’s transfer emerged, the BJP on Tuesday criticised the state government and alleged that Kumar had been made a scapegoat.
BJP national general secretary and West Bengal unit in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya tweeted (translated from Hindi) on Tuesday: “This is called passing the blame to someone else. Why was Kumar removed when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is also the (state) health minister? She should have admitted her own mistakes. Owning up mistakes does not belittle anyone.”
TMC spokesperson and Lok Sabha member Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, a doctor by profession, rubbished the BJP’s allegations and said: “It must have been a routine transfer because there is no question of deficiency, negligence, and poor performance on the part of the Health Department. Our Health Department is doing better than many other states on multiple parameters.”
A senior state government official said on the condition of anonymity, “There was speculation (in state bureaucracy) that Kumar would be in trouble because he had opposed Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on constituting a death audit committee. He also expressed his displeasure at the Health Department’s functioning, and on the process of sending data to the Centre.”
The official said that Kumar had “expressed his displeasure and volunteered for a transfer” three weeks ago.