Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The old order is being swept out of Shastri Bhavan faster than one can say ‘MBA’. A day after giving the IIMs the right to decide on their fee structure, the HRD ministry today shifted out its most controversial bureaucrat, V.S. Pandey, in a crucial break with the Joshi era.
The joint secretary (technical education), seen as Murli Manohar Joshi’s point-man in the IIM issue, had acquired a shade of notoriety for bullying the heads of these institutions. Pandey, whose transfer order reached Shastri Bhavan this afternoon, had gone out of the way to implement the policy decisions of his political boss almost zealously.
And Joshi had continued to pamper Pandey, knowing full well that the joint secretary’s style of establishing bureaucratic control on the IIMs was widening the rift with the management institutions almost irreversibly.
Pandey has been kept ‘‘in compulsory waiting’’ — civil service jargon for cooling one’s heels till a vacancy comes up. In effect, the government is expressing its dissatisfaction with Pandey and shunting him out for the time being.
Ministry sources said that another IAS officer, V.K. Pipersania, who has been the Financial Advisor for almost a year now, may also be transferred shortly. Pipersania, an Allahabadi like Pandey, had also become strongly identified with Joshi’s scheme of things. He had accompanied Pandey to the IIMs and had mimicked the latter’s styleof shouting down academics.
In a separate order today, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has also designated Sudip K. Banerjee as the new additional secretary in the HRD ministry. A joint secretary in the same ministry during Arjun Singh’s earlier stint in the 1990s, Banerjee has long been Singh’s trusted bureaucrat.
The additional secretary’s post has been lying vacant following the elevation of the earlier incumbent Kumud Bansal to the post of elementary education secretary in April this year. Banerjee had looked after the National Literacy Mission when he was joint secretary in the ministry.
Lately, he has been the additional secretary in the Union Agriculture ministry. An officer of the 1971 batch, he is from the IAS cadre of Arjun Singh’s home state, Madhya Pradesh.
It looks likely that the dominance of the UP cadre in the HRD ministry can soon be under threat. Even after the departure of Pandey, there are at least four senior (joint secretary and above) officers who are from the UP cadre. Arjun Singh is bringing over bureaucrats he enjoys working with from either Madhya Pradesh or Chhatisgarh.
And Sunil Kumar, who is joining HRD ministry as a joint secretary and most probably as Pandey’s replacement in the technical education wing, comes from Chhatisgarh. He was the food and civil supplies secretary in the Raman Singh government and had worked with Arjun Singh before as his PS in the HRD ministry. He was also PS to Ajit Jogi when the latter was the chief minister of Chhatisgarh.
