Address crucial issues at stake: Former civil servants in open letter to PM

NEW DELHI: A group of 116 former civil servants has penned an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing his government of being more concerned with "managing the narrative of efficient management of the Covid crisis rather than addressing the crucial issues at stake".
The letter by the Constitutional Conduct Group alleged that the Centre was ill-prepared to tackle the spread of coronavirus since the pandemic surged and urged the government to take urgent action, including centralising procurement and supply of vaccines and ensuring that they are administered free of cost and universally to all Indians.
The letter was endorsed, among others, by former Cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar, former health secretary K Sujatha Rao, former foreign secretary and ex-national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, former adviser to the Prime Minister TKA Nair, former CIC Wajahat Habibullah and former Delhi LG Najeeb Jung.
"Right from the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, your government has never systematically assessed the funds that state governments would need to tackle the pandemic", the former officials said, criticising the Centre for failing to pay GST dues to states, incurring "unnecessary expenditure" on the Central Vista project and not listening to repeated warnings by the international and domestic scientific community.
Suggesting that the government must substantially increase RT-PCR testing in rural and urban areas, make adequate funds available to states to provision for medical facilities, provide monthly income support to needy persons, remove FCRA restrictions on NGOs and place all data in public domain to ensure that evidence-based policy measures are implemented, the former bureaucrats also noted with concern the "steady erosion of the Cabinet system of governance" and worsening of federal relationships with states.