Will ‘strained’ Thakral fulfil expectations or ‘succumb’ to addl weight?

Jaipur: There are a few Secretaries in the State Secretariat, whom the DoP has overburdened with major responsibilities, keeping aside their experience and abilities. One prominent name among such officials is Naresh Kumar Thakral. The 2006 batch ‘young’ IAS was promoted to the rank of Secretary merely 7 months back, but in January itself he was given the important role of Secretary, Finance (Expenditure). Normally, an officer, who is looking after the finances of the State, is not given any additional charge of another department, but in January itself Thakral was given the additional charge of Sports. But that was not all, in the IAS transfer list of July, Thakral was further burdened by DoP as he was given a ‘hefty responsibility of Secretary, Skill Development and Chairman and Managing Director of Skill Development Corporation as an additional charge.

People in the knowhow are aware that Thakral has been provided with these responsibilities by Minister Ashok Chandna. When Thakral was Bundi Collector, he became a trusted confidante of Chandna and now he is working in the department as the ‘Yes Man’ of the Minister.

Those who are adept with the workings of bureaucracy and administration claim that the post of Secretary, of Finance (Expenditure) is a full-time job for which an official has to be extra careful and alert, and thus, it won’t be possible for him to pay attention to some other work.

As of now, the Sports Department has a fulltime work situation since the Gramin Sports Olympics will be organised from August 29 wherein, 30 lakh players will take part for two months. The State Government has approved a separate Rs 40 crore budget for it. This is Gehlot Government’s flagship programme and along with the Sports Council, even the department has the onus to make the programme a huge success. This means that Thakral will also have to provide his undivided attention to the mega event.

When the responsibilities of Secretary, Skill Development, and CMD, Skill Development Corporation were handed over to IAS Arushi Malik nearly three months ago, First India had raised the point that DoP’s experiment was neither logical nor practical and the responsibilities of both the posts should be with two separate officers. But the DoP reached its heights of poor man management, when instead of finding apt officers, it handed over the responsibilities, as an additional charge, to the Secretary, who was already overburdened.

Skill Development Department alone has so much work that Thakral cannot complete it even if he spends his entire time there. Rozgar Mela has to be organised in 6,900 Gram Panchayats for which a budget of Rs 40 crore has been approved.

Moreover, sanction orders for the year 2022- 23 haven’t been issued yet, so all training centres will remain idle. The final payment is due under Saksham and Samarth schemes for want of third-party assessment. Actually payment process in most schemes is majorly stuck due to final decisions. Tenders are pending for ‘Rozgar Mela’ and Migration Support Centres, as these are to be given only to favourable agencies.

Similarly, there are half a dozen cases, where CMD has to take hard decisions, but for these, the CMD will have to study the concerned files minutely, but Thakral does not have time and as a result, the work of the Corporation is getting affected.

Naresh Thakral’s own office is in Secretariat, while for Rural Olympics, he will have to go to SMS Stadium; While for Skill Development, he will have to travel 8 kilometres to Jhalana. It is needed that he reaches all offices every day.

Moreover, merely 7 months ago, Thakral became a Secretary and thus, he does not hold the required experience. It is, therefore, baseless and illogical to expect satisfactory results from him in all three departments.