Collectors upset over move to apppoint district ombudsmen

Not quite satisfied with the guardians, it then appointed three Relief Commissioners during last year’s drought, besides of course, the Chief Minister’s Office which was overseeing all this.

The result was complete chaos, with no one quite sure of who controlled what. With authority split between different power centres, the administration was in a mess, and the morale of Collectors and district development officers dived. In fact, political observers say poor management of the drought is considered the chief reason for the BJP’s humilitation during last year’s civic polls.

With the prospect of drought looming this summer too, the government has tried some damage control by reducing the number of Relief Commissioners to one per district. However, the officer will have an additional commissioner, and the ACS (Revenue) — who is in charge of the scarcity works — for company. The guardian ministers and guardian secretaries continue. And now there’s the Lok Prahari as well.

Officers feel the state government is gradually but firmly destroying time-tested institutions of the Collector and the DDO. “In the name of responsive administration, the government is eroding the very institution, which implements its ambitious schemes,” remaked a senior bureaucrat.

A District Collector expressed shock that officers like him would now have a retired judge to answer to, “besides those politically-motivated guardian ministers and guardian secretaries who wish to rule by remote control, sitting in the comforts of the Sachivalaya”.

Another asked: “Do they want me to work or remain locked in meetings with these guardians and ombudsmen? This judge will expect me to be at his beck and call and I will have to first tutor him in government procedures.”

Senior officials feel that instead of creating so many layers over the District Collectors, the government should appoint good officers to these posts. Their monitoring in any case is being done by the ministers and bureaucrats of respective departments.

“In the system that has been prevailing since the British Raj, you are sure whom to catch for mess-ups. If you have many layers, some without any clear-cut powers, everyone will pass on the blame to every other person,” explains an official. The need, they say, is to strengthen and tone up the existing systems and not to experiment with wild ideas that encourage buck-passing.