All work and no play for Bihar bureaucrats

If officials thought chief minister Nitish Kumar would go easy on them because of his personal tragedy, they were wrong. Just as they were preparing to relax on January 2, they got a call from chief secretary Anup Mukherjee, saying that the “boss” had expressed his desire to not to put brakes on the pace of work though he was in mourning because of his mother’s death. senior official said: “It is not fair. In any other state, things would have slowed down, at least for a week.” Immediately going back to work, he asked his junior officials to speed up the preparations for the presentation he has to make for his department. Babudom had never been so boring in Bihar. “It’s all work and no play,” the official grumbled.

Parties called off

The death of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s mother has led to the cancellation of several parties. Road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav and food and civil supplies minister Shyam Rajak had planned to host parties on the New Year. But they cancelled them after the death of Nitish’s mother. So did a few more ministers. “It would be bad if the ministers keep on throwing parties when the chief minister is in mourning. They (the ministers) are genuinely grieved over the incident,” said a senior JD (U) leader. However, the leader, who was previously with the RJD, recalled an incident when a minister threw a party on the occasion of his grandson’s birthday. “The date of the birthday party was altered so that Laluji could make it to the party,” the JD (U) leader said.

Cooking profit

A senior police officer was shocked recently when he found the cook appointed for a unit of Bihar Military Police (BMP) was absent and another person was cooking for the unit. The cook had been appointed at a monthly salary of Rs 8,000. He then went on to hire another cook at Rs 3,000 per month, making a neat profit of Rs 5,000 per month. The official was left wondering if cooks from hotels could be given the job for Rs 5,000 per month. “Most of the hotels pay their cooks Rs 4,000 per month and they have to prepare a variety of cuisines. They should be happy with cooking just a few items in the BMP camps,” said another police officer. Of course, he mused, that it could trigger an acute crisis of cooks in the hotels of Patna.

Intensive polls

The state election office has refused to increase the expenditure of candidates contesting the panchayat polls. The expenditure will remain Rs 25,000 for candidates aspiring to be mukhiyas (village heads) of their panchayats. “That is chicken feed,” said an aspiring mukhiya. The candidate stressed the stakes were so high that distribution of cash and liquor was more intensive in panchayat elections than the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. MLAs have, however, pointed to the new cars and houses purchased by mukhiyas in the recent past and have demanded a body to control corruption. “Even a stupid mukhiya earns Rs 1 crore in five years, while our development funds have been withdrawn,” said an RJD MLA.