NEW DELHI, DEC 4: Minister for Social Welfare Maneka Gandhi and bureaucrats slugged it out in a workshop on good governance organised by officials of the Delhi government today. Hackles rose after she suggested in her hard-hitting and unexpectedly candid speech that there be a simpler procedure for sacking corrupt officials.``Bureaucrats should be made a little less secure. There should be a provision where they can be sacked when they are wrong. The present procedure is so cumbersome that no one does it,'' she said.``There are bureaucrats who have cases against them, who have passed appalling decisions and have been raided. But there is no fear because of the security that an official my peon even cannot be sacked,'' she said.Having thus flustered the officials, the Minister asked who can monitor bureaucrats and how can, in the first place, a civil servant be sacked?``There is no question that the tenure has to be made less secure. It was the Bharatiya Janata Party which gave a two-year extension to bureaucrats, but there should be a way of regulating the bureaucracy. If you cannot regulate yourself, there has to be someone regulating you,'' she answered.Reacting strongly to this, New Delhi Municipal Council Chairman B P Mishra said: ``Why should I be watched or monitored by anyone? I am not corrupt. And how many people will watch me? I don't agree with the idea.''A senior bureaucrat pointed out that the number of difficult decisions taken by an official are indicated by the number of times he or she is transferred. To this, Maneka Gandhi retorted: ``The minister concerned does not even know who is being transferred where and why. It is the bureaucrats who do the transfers.'' She suggested that bureaucracy should develop a creative thinktank. She told the bureaucrats not to be afraid of taking bold decisions as ``you're in a job from which you cannot be sacked''.To this, Mishra said: ``We have elections very often and every time, for three months, the country ceases to exist because no decision tough or otherwise can be taken.''``Then there are frequent transfers. By the time an official gets the hang of the job, he is transferred out. When is he given time to make a decision?'' he questioned.Gandhi had been invited by the organisers - the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS) Officers' Association - to speak on why it takes the government so long to take tough decisions in public interest.The seminar was inaugurated by the Delhi Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor.``We need expertise, money and willingness,'' said V K Ghosh, chairman, Delhi Development Authority, offering some solutions to Delhi's problems of governance. ``Linear development of the Capital towards the nine towns that surround it should help a great deal in decongesting the city,'' he added.
