Jogaram’s ‘burden’ removed, but what about other ‘overburden’?

Jaipur: After First India recently highlighted how overburdened IAS Jogaram was, the DoP took cognizance of the matter and took the additional charge of Planning from Jogaram while handing the same to IAS Bhawani Singh Detha.

In its edition dated May 26, First India had prominently raised the concern that Jogaram already has a full time and important responsibility of Secretary, LSG Department and he has to walk, strides matching, with hard task master Shanti Dhariwal. Moreover, on the other hand, CS Usha Sharma also demands hard work and complete attention in Planning department and therefore it was not practically possible for Jogaram to handle two fronts.

The DoP, on Monday, issued a new order and handed the additional charge of Planning to Bhawani Singh Detha who does not have too much work as Secretary, Higher and Technical Education. However, administrative experts believe that this change is not correct as CM himself was not satisfied with Detha’s performance in LSG and therefore it raises a doubt if he will be able to give desired results to VS Usha Sharma.

Moreover, even Anand Kumar is troubled with the additional charge of Water Resources and now he no longer has to deal with 7 ministers, but with 8 ministers. Additionally, he has to attend meetings of Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya too. Three IAS who have served as Secretary, water Resources, claim that in the next two months, the Rabi crop will be harvested and this season is the most difficult time for the department as more than half of the water needed for these crops is taken from three states and to ensure that Rajasthan gets the water that it needs, is a major and difficult challenge. Therefore, the DoP will have to appoint a full time Secretary in Water Resources department.

Meanwhile, it is also prudent to highlight yet another issue of ‘additional charge’. In the transfer list dated January 16, the additional charge of Sports and Youth Affairs department was handed to Secretary, Finance (Expenditure) Naresh Thakral. Now two months from now the rural games would be organized and the department’s budget has been increased from 100 crore to 400 crores. Thus this department too needs a full time secretary and as such there is no wisdom in aligning Sports with finance secretary.

Meanwhile, DoP is still in search for Collectors for Dungarpur and Dholpur and now such officials should be posted there who can continue in the position till December 2023.