Panchayati Raj Dept suffers due to ‘Panchayati’ between minister-officer!

Jaipur: The State Government has put the 1996 batch senior RAS Rajendra Singh, currently serving as Additional Director of Indira Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sansthan, on APO. Although the DoP issued the order of APO on Monday, the Director of Panchayati Raj Sansthan, Pratibha Singh, issued an order on August 17 and took all the powers from him. Furthermore, these powers were handed to Deputy Secretary Ghanshyam Sharma, even though it did not fall under her jurisdiction. Sources reveal that for a long time, not everything is alright in IGPRS. Word is that Minister Ramesh Meena and IAS and RAS of the Sansthan don’t look eye to eye on issues. In June this year, the Minister got DG Ravishankar Srivastava transferred. Although the officer later brought a stay from CAT and is still posted as DG of IGPRS. It is a different matter that he does not even have a place to sit in the Sansthan. His room on the third floor was burnt down in a fire. The police have sealed the room and are now investigating the reason for the outbreak of fire.

It was seen that the Minister was getting miffed by the day with Singh and verbal duel during meetings was a common sight. In his 25-year-long career, Rajendra Singh has served in various important posts and has still three years left in his service. He was carrying out the work of Sansthan in a proper manner, but after Ramesh Meena became a Minister again, troubles started for the Sansthan. DG Ravishankar is going to retire next month and since no room is available for him, he is mostly working from home. Now, with Rajendra Singh being put on APO, the work of IGPRS will go for a toss and the responsibilities of Principal Secretary Aparna Arora will increase substantially.