Thiruvananthapuram: Amidst power shortages, a tight financial situation and infighting in the Congress party over defeats in some constituencies in the recent Lok Sabha poll, the United Democratic Front government in Kerala has a new problem to tackle: Bickering among its Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers.
What started as misgivings among senior civil services officers has now come out into the open and the opposition has also got into the act, asking the government to put its administrative machinery in order.
Opposition leader V.S. Achuthanandan on Thursday said there was a “breakdown” in administration because senior civil servants were bickering among themselves. Achuthanandan said this was the first time in the state that such a situation was taking place, adding that the government cannot be mute witness to such developments.
The squabbles among the IAS cadres in the state came out into the open after one of them, Raju Narayanaswamy who is presently the director for printing and stationery, gave a complaint to the IAS Association that the chief secretary, E.K. Bharat Bhushan was harassing him.
The state cabinet has said a factional feud among civil servants cannot be tolerated.
On its part, the IAS Association has sought a meeting with the chief minister to discuss Narayanaswamy’s complaint as well as other issues.
Local media reported that there may be more complaints among civil servants about their peers or seniors and that Narayanaswamy’s complaint may be the tip of the iceberg.
Narayanaswamy made headlines many years ago when he topped the national civil services exam.
The wrangling among senior civil servants is considered a blow for the government in the backdrop of the ruling party’s feeling that many of its welfare measures intended for the masses are lacking in the quality of their roll out, in which the different rungs of bureaucracy also plays a part.
Chief minister Oommen Chandy himself conducts mass contact programmes where he meets people directly, who have not been able to solve their grievances through the normal administrative procedures.
