North Block wears a total deserted look

It was not only the finance minister Yashwant Sinha who was missing for a good part of the day in the North Block on Monday. A lot of the senior bureaucrats, in the finance ministry, either had an extended lunch or were not much involved with their regular work.

The usually busy press information officers in the finance ministry were also taking it easy. Unlike on normal working days, Yashwant Sinha did not have any formal schedule for the day. Sinha spent a couple of hours in the morning at his office and then left. After much proding about the minister’s movements, a ministry old-timer said ‘Mantriji kothi pe hai’. He may come for a few hours late in the evening, the person added.

However, a senior bureaucrat in the ministry maintained that it was business as usual in the North Block and there has been no spur of activity on the what was expected to be the last day in the office for Sinha. ‘‘No, there was no massive clearance of files’’, the official added. In fact, as was planned earlier by Sinha most of the things are still on schedule. For example, the finance ministry had decided and would go ahead with the interviews for the post of the chief economic advisors on July 16 and July 17, senior officials added. This post had fallen vacant after Rakesh Mohan stepped down from the post of economic advisor to the FM.