© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
IN HIS first response to the relentless criticism by Opposition parties over the overarching role of his private secretary V K Pandian, and the use of state helicopters and other officials to travel to districts, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Monday told the Assembly that the trips were meant to ensure grievances cells were decentralised and taken to districts.
“This mammoth exercise was carried out in more than 190 locations over a period of six months. They covered 3-5 venues every day, collecting 57,442 petitions and resolving 43,536 petitions till date,” said Patnaik, after the BJP and the Congress stalled Assembly proceedings over Pandian’s alleged “growing influence”.
Earlier this year, based on a complaint by BJP leaders against “an IAS officer”, purportedly Pandian, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the Union government had sent a notice to the Odisha Chief Secretary. The Congress too had approached the DoPT, its complaint naming Pandian and accusing him of violation of service conduct rules.
Recently, the BJD expelled senior leader Soumya Ranjan Patnaik after editorials in the newspaper run by him criticised the role played by Pandian in the BJD government.
Speaking in the Assembly, the CM said his government had always given top priority to peoples’ grievance redress, and that these exercises had actually saved the aggrieved citizens the cost of travelling to the state capital. He added that after his government’s grievance redressal mechanism was thrown off track by the Covid pandemic, he decided to reach out to the people, covering all blocks and urban local bodies of the state in the shortest possible time.
On the Opposition’s claims that respective ministers were sidelined during these visits by the officials, Patnaik said the grievance cell was always handled by officials and not ministers. Interestingly, the last time Patnaik himself attended a CM’s grievance cell meeting was on August 16, 2008.
The CM rubbished allegations that there had been lavish spending on the chopper rides by Pandian and other officers. “It’s completely false and misleading to say this,” said Patnaik.
He also said it would have taken the officers a year-and-a-half to complete the same exercise by travelling on roads.
“In the last three-and-a-half years, we have spent about Rs 40 crore on chopper rides, at Rs 1-1.5 crore on average per month. But even in the past six months, when chopper use was intensified to reach out to the people, the average expenditure remained at around Rs 1-1.5 crore per month,” clarified Patnaik in the Assembly.
The Odisha opposition has been relentlessly attacking the CM for several months, accusing Pandian of violating the All India Service Rules for bureaucrats. Workers of the BJP have staged protests across the state, wherever the officer is visiting on a particular date.
