The reason behind Akhil’s DIPR appointment!

Jaipur: An efficient and result-oriented IAS officer Akhil Arora has been given additional responsibility, through the recent IAS rejig in the state.

Arora has been given the charge of DIPR as well and certain ‘sections’ in the bureaucracy could not fathom the reason behind the state government’s move.

However, highly placed sources in the state administration reveal that the reason for this is simple: The next two years are crucial for the state government uring which focus will be on DIPR.

There is a word in the relevant circles that Finance Department was almost always at crossroads with the DIPR overpayments made by the department to the state media and how the payments were stalled or slowed down.

Keeping this in mind, Arora has been appointed since he also has the reins of the Finance Department which in turn will bring cohesiveness in the functioning of both the departments! Till now, the additional charge of this post rested with ACS (Home) Abhay Kumar.

In September 2019, Abhay Kumar was appointed as full-time Principal Secretary of DIPR, but later when he held the charge of the Home department, for some time, the responsibility of DIPR was not with him, but the state government again gave him the additional charge.

Word is that after being promoted to the rank of ACS, Abhay had requested the state government that since he also has additional charge of Transport Department in conjunction with handling Home, therefore he is heavily burdened and under such circumstances, he should be relieved of his responsibility of DIPR. The state government also accepted the same.

Then there is another word doing round that the working of current Commissioner/Director of DIPR - Purushottam - did not go down well with Abhay as he was working on his own accord without asking or informing the ACS.

In fact, there was some sort of communication gap between the two. Due to this distances grew between them and the otherwise calm Abhay Kumar, did not like the situation.

Kumar carried out the roles and responsibilities during his stint in DIPR with utmost perfection. Whether it was the exhibition at JKK, publication, or the other programs organized on the completion of three years of state government, Abhay completed the task with exemplary success.