The ‘one-man army’ of Rajasthan bureaucracy!

Jaipur: It would be perhaps a one-off situation, but several incidents of ‘clash’ or tussle between ministers and their respective department secretaries have been observed over the past few months. The Secretaries are finding it hard to strike a chord with their ministers.

Therefore, while several secretaries have to somehow create a semblance and get the day-to-day works done, senior IAS Anand Kumar presents a contrasting example to the ‘dilemma,’ an unprecedented situation.

Kumar is handling the reins of half a dozen departments as he is serving as Principal Secretary - Revenue, Colonisation, Sainik Kalyan, Disaster Management, Relief, and Civil Defence.

Recently when Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expanded his cabinet, he appointed different ministers for departments whose Secretary is Anand Kumar. T

hese ministers are Ramlal Jat (Revenue), Shale Mohammad (Colonisation), Govind Ram Meghwal (Disaster Management), Rajendra Gudha ( Sainik Kalyan), Ashok Chandna (MoS DisasterManagement), Sukhram Vishnoi (MoS Revenue) and Subhash Garg ( MoS Colonisation).

There are times when multiple ministers call Kumar at the same time and meetings are also held simultaneously.

At such times, Anand faces difficulty in ascertaining the priority, but he still tries his level best that none of the seven ministers feels bad or gets disgruntled. Similarly, Samit Sharma has three ministers - Tikaram Jully (Social Justice), Mamta Bhupesh (Women and Child Development) and Arjun Bamnia (TAD) while IAS Arushi Malik has to handle two ministers - Lalchand Kataria (Animal Husbandry) and Pramod Jain Bhaya (Gopalan).