50,000 staffers on move, Rajasthan halts

In effect, the government has been paralysed for nearly three weeks.

As Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje left on her Maharashtra campaign trail, details of the chaos are starting to emerge. Many schools being left with no teachers at all, Sanskrit teachers have been posted in Commerce colleges and no work continues to be the order of the day.

Though the government has issued an ultimatum, directing employees to join their new posts by October 11, the commotion over the ‘‘largest number of collective transfers ever’’ shows no signs of ending.

In Jhunjhunu district, there were massive protests against the transfer of the principal of Kuhadwas Senior Secondary School. Agitated villagers took to the streets, forcing the police to use tear-gas and eventually fire at the crowd. At least 40 people, including many policemen, were injured in the incident, which is not being investigated further because ‘‘peace prevails’’.

Since it came to power in December 2003, this is the first large-scale transfer exercise that the Vasundhara Raje government has undertaken. While bureaucrats were transferred almost immediately, all other transfers were held up due to Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly session.

Vasundhara Raje had been under tremendous pressure from her party to end the six-month transfer ban. The party felt that there were too many ‘‘Congress supporting’’ employees in important posts. Raje lifted the ban on September 10 and the frenzy began.

Of the five lakh or so employees in the State, an estimated three lakh put in requests for transfers. Droves of government teachers, tehsildars, SHOs, clerks and peons in the State have spent the last three weeks camping outside the houses of ministers, with requests for transfers and subsequent cancellations.

The exercise that was to be completed by September 30, with instructions to employees to join work by October 4, is still on. With transfers continuing past the deadline, the government was forced to issue another order cancelling all transfer orders issued after September 30.

‘‘There has never been so much confusion in the past,’’ says former Congress chief minister Shiv Charan Mathur. ‘‘The government has been corrupt and has indiscriminately transferred people. In places like Mandalgarh, all teachers have been transferred out but no one has been posted in. There are so many such problems.’’

But the biggest of them all is the fact that in many cases the mandatory ‘‘no objection certificates’’ from institutions run by the Panchayat Samiti have not been obtained.

‘‘This is going to be very embarrassing for the government,’’ admits an official. ‘‘In cases where transfers of employees working in institutions run by the Panchayat Samiti are involved, a no-objection certificate is required before the person is transferred under the jurisdiction of another samiti. This time the government has not done that and many transfer orders are likely to be stayed by the services tribunal.’’

All transfer lists were approved by ministers of the respective departments, amidst allegations of favouritism and corruption.

Brushing aside these allegations, state BJP president Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi says: ‘‘There is no question of additional TA/DA burden on the state or any such thing. Almost 90 per cent of the transfers have been done based on requests received by the employees and in such cases the government does not give any monetary benefit. The Congress had oppressed employees, we have liberated them.’’ And paralysed the state, for now.