Miffed’ Dhariwal takes jibe at RIICO, officials over Kota land!

Kota: In a bizzare and unprecedented move, senior Congress leader and UDH Minister Shanti Dhariwal pointed guns at one of Rajasthan’s premier industrial catalyst - RIICO - on Sunday even as RIICO is a leading industrial organization of Rajasthan and is doing a good job under the leadership of its Chairman IAS Kuldeep Ranka (who happens to be Principal Secretary to CM also).

Addressing a program of entrepreneurs in Kota, the UDH Minister said, “RIICO is a very big disease. This corporation is made by officers and run by officers. If a minister is weak, the officers influence the minister easily and make a board or corporation. RIICO is being accused of obstructing development works and disturbing planning.”

Now everyone is wondering why a straight forward and always ‘supportive’ Dhariwal had to make such a statement on a corporation which has actually been the harbinger of industrial development in Rajasthan and why is he ‘miffed’ with officers?

However, highly placed sources have revealed the inside story and said that the matter is related to coaching institutes in Kota which has an impressive lobby of coaching institutes. Word is that many institutes have been built on non-institutional lands and a large part of such land is in the area of RIICO. UDH wants to change the land use of the entire land and preparing for changes in the master plan. As a result, RIICO’s land is also coming under this part for which Kota MD of RIICO wrote a strong protest letter to UDH resulting in a ‘fierce confrontation’ between RIICO and UDH.

Dhariwal is the minister of UDH department and Kota’s coaching lobby is pressurizing him. So the question is what should Dhariwal do, because he always have to fight elections from Kota. Notably, such ‘compulsions’ keep appearing in democracy before the local politicians.