Austerity norms set aside

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, AUG. 9.

Throwing all norms to the winds, heads of various Corporations and Boards and Chairmen of the nine District Development Committees have gone ahead and bought new vehicles in total disregard of the State Finance Department's order imposing a ban on new vehicles.

Not only this, while making the purchases, no thought was given to the environment or reduction of pollution as the new vehicles are all petrol-run. This is contrary to the Government orders of purchasing only CNG vehicles in the Delhi administration. The Finance Department of the Delhi Government had last October imposed a number of austerity measures, including ban on purchase of new vehicles.

Insiders in the Government said apart from purchasing new vehicles for the nine Chairmen of the District Development Committees, the Chairman of the Delhi Khadi and Village Industrial Board and sitting MLA, Kanwar Karan Singh, has also acquired a new vehicle. For this, no special sanction of the Finance Department or the Chief Minister was taken and these were purchased without paying heed to the rules and regulations. The nine DDCs are headed by sitting MLAs drawn from various parties.

A majority of these Chairmen are also political appointees. These are mostly persons close to the Chief Minister or her Ministers and are awarded for their loyalty. While austerity has been imposed on various Departments, these political entities have acted in an arbitrary manner.

Apart from this, even the Chairmen of the autonomous Boards and Corporations, including the Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board, the administrator of the Fish Poultry and Egg Marketing Committee and the administrator APMC, Najafgarh, have gone for new vehicles.

In contrast, the Government has effected a 10 per cent across the board cut for all the Departments in Plan Expenditure in view of the tight fiscal position. Various Departments, irrespective of their importance, have been asked to cut down on their Plan expenses. In fact, sources said since adoption of austerity measures, the Government had been able to save more than Rs. 60 crores. The target is likely to be set higher for the next financial year for which some other measures are also in the offing.

The Government has already banned use of mobile phones by senior bureaucrats and officers as a part of this drive. Sources said the August 1 deadline, set by the Finance Department, for all the senior bureaucrats except the Principal Secretary (Home), to deposit their mobile phones has been met. The Department has received a positive response and the compliance has been almost 100 per cent. It has also placed a ban on purchase of new mobiles for the next two years.

The clamp-down on cellular phones for senior and junior staff followed reports of staggering bills that some officials had run up. There were also reports of official cell phones being misused for personal use leading to cancellation of this facility for even bureaucrats of the Principal Secretary and Secretary-level.

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