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| IAS couple facing wrath of J&K’s administrative head | | Old professional enmity over a flat behind move | |
Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, May 16: Believe it or not but a man in the top echelons of power in Jammu and Kashmir is adamant on ruining happily married life of two senior IAS officers and prevent them from constructing ‘dream home’ for themselves in New Delhi.
The two officers are former Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) CEO Arun Kumar and Principal Secretary (Coordination) Sonali Kumar. Sources said that after failing to get Arun Kumar to resume duty as Chairman Special Tribunal, a man in top echelons of power has been making ‘desperate attempts’ to get Sonali back into the civil secretariat, most probably as Principal Secretary Health and Medical Education.
Ironically, not because of her experience but to ensure that Arun Kumar, whose house is still under construction, is effectively rendered “homeless’ in New Delhi and be forced to rejoin his assignment in Jammu and Kashmir. It needs to be reiterated that most of the IAS officers who are sent to New Delhi with an assignment face innumerable problems in getting a good accommodation over there.
Sources disclosed that Sonali Kumar had two, rather famous and popular, stints in Health and Medical Education already. They said that in April 2005, when she was first posted, she introduced National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in J&K. they further added that Sonali also revised the transfer and promotion policy for Doctors, hitting out at the private practice of many influential doctors who had got themselves “attached” in the capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu.
Sources confirmed that Sonali’s efforts to streamline purchase policy for hospital supplies hit out at many other vested interests. They added that in no time, the then-Health Minister Suman Lata Bhagat managed to oust her after just 4 months. Sources further held out that with dumping of this, Health Minister, and adverse CRs that she wrote (expunged later) notwithstanding, she was brought back to the Health Department after another four months i.e. in Nov. 2005.
This time, she got almost 8 months. Sources asserted that consequences of sending over 200 doctors to man long-neglected rural posts and insistence on implementing a fair Purchase Policy, in utter disregard of all political pressure, resulted in her “dumping”, this time in the Administrative Reforms Department (ARD) for over two years. This was incidentally her longest posting ever in any department in J&K.
In February 2008, Sonali was made Commissioner/Secretary Agriculture. According to sources, Sonali locked horns with Agriculture Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir on the seniority issue of some 900 gazetted officers of the department. Meanwhile, after spending 22 years in J&K, Sonali was transferred and posted as Principal Secretary (Coordination) with hardly any work.
Sources close to husband-wife duo maintain that top head of bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir is nursing a grudge against them due to which Arun Kumar’s salary has been stopped. Sources say that this animosity goes way back to 1982-83 when the couple were for the first time allotted a house in 50:50 proportion in Srinagar (it was a usual practice in those days to make officers “share” accommodation), while the ‘top officer’ was allotted a flat.
Resentful at this “discrimination”, the ‘top officer’ complained to all and sundry but to no avail. Sources said that nursing the grudge, the same officer hit back at Sonali Kumar, when he was Commissioner/Secretary Industries in 1993 for about four months and Sonali was Director Handlooms, by “spoiling” her CRs. He is reported to have commented that Sonali’s knowledge of Handlooms was “average”.
Sources said that in 1994, the same top officer as Commissioner/Secretary GAD transferred Arun Kumar from Secretary Housing and Urban Development and posted him as Joint Registrar Agrarian Reforms. They added Arun refused to join and proceeded to Delhi, on a UNDP project as its National Coordinator. When Sonali Kumar applied for study leave to join her husband, the same top officer refused on the grounds that her services were still required in J&K.
Her salary was consequently stopped for over 6 months. After the intervention of the Governor’s office, Sonali’s study leave was sanctioned and salary released. However, the same ‘top officer’, sources said struck back by manoeuvring to get a letter written by the Governor for withdrawing Sonali’s name from list of officers for posting in union government and also for recalling those who were then on deputation.
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