The Hindu : Ministers draw MLAs' ire

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 26, 2002

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Ministers draw MLAs' ire

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI NOV. 25. The functioning of the Cabinet colleagues of the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, came under strong attack from party MLAs today at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP). Ms. Dikshit is learnt to have directed the Ministers to have a higher level of interaction with the legislators and sort out their grievances immediately instead of referring the same to the bureaucrats all the time.

It is learnt that a majority of the Congress MLAs complained that not only were the Ministers not available if their offices but rarely did they gave a patient hearing to the problems raised by them. The matter was always referred to the bureaucrats and the Ministers were most ill-informed about the ground realities prevailing in their Departments. The issue was first raised by the Kamla Nagar MLA, Shadi Ram, who accused the Ministers of not accommodating the MLAs and party workers in the recruitment drive initiated in various Departments. He is believed to have stated that nearly 700 posts were sought to be filled in the Health Department but the Minister concerned had not bothered to even accommodate the interests of the MLAs.

He was supported in this endeavour by his other colleagues who had the same grievance against various Ministers. At this, the Chief Minister is learnt to have asked the Health Minister, A.K. Walia, to cater to the demands of the MLAs and ensure that their representatives are given due importance in the Government recruitment drive. Some of the party MLAs complained that the new voters were being denied the right to register themselves in the voters lists as the officials were putting up various conditions for the purpose. They said the Election Minister, Deep Chand Bandhu, was not taking any interest in the enrollment drive and said directions should be issued not to harass those who want their names to be included in the voters list. At this instance, the Chief Minister told Mr. Bandhu to take personal interest in the matter and pull up officials who were putting obstacles in the smooth implementation of the drive.

Similarly, Kunwar Karan Singh, pointed out that despite the District Development Committees having come into existence about six months ago, the Urban Development Department and the Finance Department had failed to release the Rs. 1.5 crore fund for developmental activities by these Committee's. Some of the MLAs said that a number of problems remained unaddressed with regard to the street lights and high mast lights in their constituencies as funds were not being released on time. A few MLAs complained that liquor shops were being opened in their areas without their consent and wanted the State Government to clarify its stand on the issue.

Perturbed by the mounting complaints against the Ministers, the Chief Minister told the Ministers present in the meeting that majority of these issues were small problems which should be addressed at the level of the Ministers themselves. She directed the Ministers to interact with the MLAs regularly and sort out these problems at the district levels. On the other hand, Ms.Dikshit indicated that she would be taking a round of meetings of all the nine districts along with the respective MLAs to identity the problems and work out solutions. It was also decided that public meetings should be organised by different MLAs in order to start a build up for the Assembly elections which are only a year away. All the Ministers except for the Education Minister, Raj Kumar Chauhan, were present in the CLP meeting.

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Ministers draw MLAs' ire