Protocol over-rules respect
Former minister and senior Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy had a bitter experience when he went to pay homage to late P.V. Narasimha Rao at the latter’s memorial on the occasion of his birth centenary celebrations on Sunday.
Police stopped him from proceeding at the venue as a State programme was being organised and nobody was allowed until the Chief Minister paid his tributes first.
Mr. Reddy said that Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar informed the same when he was contacted and he had to return home. “It was insulting and humiliating,” he said. An hour later, the Police Commissioner and the concerned Deputy Commissioner of Police called him up to inform that he could go there alone to pay respects. However, he was home by then.
More fodder for political leaders
With senior IPS officer Vinoy Kumar Singh seeking premature retirement from service, Telangana Congress committee working president and Malkajgiri MP A Revanth Reddy took a peep into departmental politics by naming a few officers who will retire this month but it was speculated that they will get post-retirement jobs in government.
His observations were widely discussed in the corridors of power, with many wondering who was the khaki ‘script writer’ behind his speech, because the MP had precise details on how the officers were promoted and how their post-retirement job files moved at a brisk pace in the government.
Ironically, the State government on Sunday transferred Mr. Singh which several police officials described as unintentionally giving ‘ammunition’ to the Malkajgiri MP. It may not be to the liking of top political and police bosses.
Something is brewing!
Leaders of some social groups made no bones about their discontent with the injustice being done to the bureaucrats from those sections who were given the ‘useless’ portfolios. The discontent among the senior officers came out in the open a few days back in the form of Director of State Police Academy Vinod Kumar Singh writing to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) seeking premature retirement. Another senior Special Chief Secretary rank officer has been relieved of several portfolios held on full additional charge basis. Although several bureaucrats are ruing the undue importance being given to a select few, they are unwilling to register discontent fearing further marginalisation in the administrative set up, observed a senior officer.
Employees’ concerns heard
Lifting of restrictions on the movement of people in the government offices last month has become a cause of concern for the government employees.
The restrictions which were put in place after the State reported steep hike in the number of positive cases helped in containing the spread of the pandemic in government offices to a large extent. But cases of employees being affected by COVID-19 showed a spike ever since these curbs were lifted. The government offices, the BRKR Bhavan and the adjacent GHMC headquarters in particular, reported several cases of COVID-19 positive patients even as signing attendance in time was made mandatory.
Representations made by the staff went in vain for some days. The employees, however, heaved a sigh of relief as the government finally reimposed the restrictions in the government offices the other day.
(R. Ravikanth Reddy, Abhinay Deshpande, B. Chandrashekhar and M. Rajeev)