The Paper trail

FOR the sake of greater autonomy and efficiency,the Railway Ministry has cut the umbilical chord that attaches it to its Public Sector Undertaking,the IRCTC. It has decided to change the current arrangement in which Member,Traffic,of the Railway Board acts as the chairman of IRCTC. The post of chairman is being merged with that of the managing director to create the position of CMD. Merging the two posts is expected to give IRCTC greater autonomy in deciding on new ventures without worrying too much about the Railway Boards red tape. IRCTCs search for talent,however,continues because its Director,Catering,and Director,Tourism and Marketing, two key officials handling its core businesses have quit in the past few months,leaving only Director,Finance,in the senior management. Officials say efforts are on to fill up the two vacant posts.

Cutting it Fine

WITH the latest revelations over the coal block allocation scam set to affect the functioning of Parliament once it resumes sittings later this month,one big worry for the governments crisis managers is how to get the Finance Bill passed. With almost 5,500 cut motions having already been submitted by Opposition Members of Parliament,mainly from the Left and the Bhartiya Janata Party,senior government functionaries have started reaching out to these parties. At the same time,some ministers,keen to get their respective Bills passed,are also in touch with senior leaders of the main opposition party. But they have been told that any meaningful business will take place only four or five days after Parliament reassembles on April 22.

KEEPING MUM

OTHERWISE a prolific commentator on Twitter,Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh has been maintaining a conspicuous distance from the social networking website of late. There has been no tweet from the outspoken leader since December 6,when he had posted a link to a television debate,featuring himself as one of the panelists,on the next prime ministerial candidate.

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