Obvious and Expected:

May 20/2013: News is rife in New Delhi that in a war of words between a people's representative (Union Minister) and a top bureaucrat, the officer has obviously had the last say.

Much to the chagrin of Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, the Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth, IAS,  has been able to swing his baton hard enough to silence whatever objections Jairam had expressed about a particular project in a letter to the Prime Minister. Jairam, considered by many as a comparatively pragmatic person amongst the motley crew of Manmohan Singh's cabinet had written to the PM about his disappointment with the effectiveness of the Integrated Action Plan (IAP). This project was mooted some years ago by the Home Ministry when Chidambaram was in charge and the Planning Commission. It has, in the meanwhile, been amalgamated with the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF).Citing glaring failures in this project which was primarily intended to bring about all round development to the 82 Left Wing Extremist affected districts in 9 states of the country, Jairam wanted it to be scrapped.

His argument is extremely believable and needs thorough scrutiny. While the whole nation has been inundated with charges of corruption against the political class, Jairam's letter to the Prime Minister is a bomb waiting to go off. The Minister has, among many other examples, cited the ineffectiveness of the District Level Monitoring Committee headed by the Collector of the concerned district with the Superintendent of Police and the Forest Officer as members. These officers have been given total control in the matter of utilisation of the vast amounts of money being spent under the IAP banner. This tax payers' money, spent exclusively at the sole discretion of the district level bureaucrats, has been purposefully kept out of the ambit of public scrutiny. In his reply to the Minister's missive to the PM, the Cabinet Secretary has supported this closed door system of allocation of this fund for development projects by the district officers claiming that it is the best method of developing backward areas where extremism has raised its head. Further, reports say, the Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth has stressed on the point that these officers are best suited to allocate funds, insisting "IAP has been a good scheme of development in difficult areas on account of its unique features like providing untied funds to the district collector for selected schemes of local relevance and felt needs".

This is a very expected behaviour of the highest bureaucrat of this country. It should not surprise any one that the brotherhood of the IAS fraternity overtakes age, caste, breed and seniority. Just the way  our Judges gang up to protect one of their own when threatened (very interestingly portrayed by one of India's senior most lawyer Fali S Nariman in his recent book - The State of the Nation), our bureaucrats and especially the IAS types don't leave a single stone unturned if and when they find the slightest threat to their herd.

While appreciating Jairam's stand that the district level bureaucrats are "ineffective" in the implementation of such an expensive and important scheme, the people of this nation have to grasp the reality of the situation prevailing in the country today. While all of us, including the filthy corrupt media, merrily go about bashing the politician, we conveniently forget to break open the cocoons that bureaucrats and judges fearlessly build around their own unquestionable systems.

In a state like Orissa, where people are averse to question even the pettiest of bureaucrats and consider them as all powerful, it is not difficult to see why development does not reach the poorest of the poor. Not only IAP or BRGF, most of the Centrally sponsored schemes are badly implemented, if at all. Starting from  MGNREGS to Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan, thousands of crores are spent every year in our state alone for which we have yet to see the signs of achievements. If Orissa is taken as the yardstick, this must be the scenario across India. Reason enough for the types of Ajit Seth to shout at the top of his voice with the sole intention of drowning out any idea of a differing thought.

Ajit Seth sits at the apex of a vain, self righteous, highly corrupt, ineffective and inept pyramid called the Indian bureaucracy. His efforts at covering up the tracks for his juniors at the district level are very obvious and expected.