After Ramniwas, who?

With Ramniwas retiring as DGP January 31, a controversy is raging over his replacement.

With Ramniwas retiring as DGP January 31, a controversy is raging over his replacement. The state has two DG-ranked cops. DG (Jail) Giridhari Nayak is the state’s most senior IPS officer and should have been the logical and hierarchical choice, but he faces a lot of opposition from powerful officers at police headquarters. The other DG-ranked cop, W S Ansari, is on deputation in Delhi and he too finds little favour with this lobby.

Apparently surrendering to their demand, the government is said to be exploring the option of bringing in an officer from another state. This, however, can lead to litigation as only an officer from the state cadre can become the DGP. Appointing an outsider to the top post in the Maoist-hit state, some police officers say, may also hit operations as the newcomer would hardly know the intricacies of the insurgency. This week will be crucial to determining the way Chhattisgarh is policed in the next few years.

Scoring financially
In its annual publication State Finances — A Study of Budgets of 2013-14 released last week, the RBI ranked Chhattisgarh the best performing state on key fiscal parameters. Its development expenditure, 20.7 per cent of its GSDP, is the highest among all states while the national average is 11.4 per cent. Its social sector expenditure, which includes outlay on education, health, SC/STs, and women and child development, too is the highest in the country at 14 per cent.

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Its capital expenditure is second only to Goa’s. Significantly, despite these expenses, the state’s debt sustainability too was termed the best in the country. The RBI’s recognition is a vindication of sorts for additional chief secretary (finance) D S Mishra, known for a clean image but recently accused by minister Brijmohan Agarwal of taking “a hefty amount” for a cycle tender.

One CM to another
In his third term, Chief Minister Raman Singh appears more assertive than ever. Not known for taking digs at other politicians, he recently termed his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal’s jan darshan on the road “much ado about nothing”. Singh said he has been meeting people in a similar way, every week, for nearly 10 years but never made a fuss of it. “The primary responsibility of a democratically elected government is to serve people. It’s incumbent upon every public representative to do this.

For any CM to take credit for such a basic issue is much ado about nothing,” he said. Next, he pulled up Tourism Minister Ajay Chandrakar in a private meeting when the latter sought funds for “pond beautification”. Singh told him curtly to plant saplings around ponds as the budgetary allocation helps only contractors.

Elected, recalled
A nagar panchayat president in Janjgir-Champa district, Amrita Devangan, lost her seat last week after her electorate exercised their right to recall. Accusing her of arbitrary behaviour and various irregularities, councillors had applied to the collector seeking to vote against her. Subsequently, voting was held in the presence of district officials and Devangan could secure only 1,085 votes, while 1,350 voted to remove her.

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This was the second instance of the right to recall being exercised in the district, but the first that the elected representative was actually removed. A few years ago, nagar panchayat president Parvati Sahis had faced a similar resolution but she had managed to retain the post during voting.

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