Defaulting departments

Something somewhere is definitely wrong in this country. This is proven by the lead news-item on the front page of this newspaper's Saturday edition whose headline says – "A few departments have failed to spend even a single rupee." As the news-item says, though only about ten weeks are left for the current fiscal year to come to an end, some Assam government departments have failed to spend even a rupee so far for implementation of some flagship schemes. This information has come from a report of the state's Finance department. The defaulting departments include Health and Family Welfare, Education (Higher and Secondary), Cultural Affairs, Tea Tribes, Indigenous and Tribal Faith & Culture, Welfare of Plain Tribes & Backward Classes, and surprisingly, even the Finance department itself. The Education department and Finance department, jointly responsible for implementation of "Pragyan Bharati" scheme have failed to utilize nearly Rs 80 crore. Similarly, the Department of Indigenous and Tribal Faith & Culture and the Tea Tribes department have together failed to spend even one rupee of Rs 21 crore allocated for implementing the "Taking Care of Our Indigenous Communities" scheme. The Welfare of Plain Tribes & Backward Classes department on the other hand failed to spend Rs 7.5 crore out of an allocation of Rs 10 crore, which was allotted for schemes meant to provide protection to rights of indigenous communities and development of their respective cultures. Here is a situation in which the government had come to power promising protection of interests of the indigenous communities in the face of the massive influx from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, and which is now faced with a situation where a section of officers have failed to ensure utilization of funds meant primarily for protecting the indigenous communities and faiths. While it also reflects on the monitoring mechanism of the state government, it is also a fact that there exists a section of officers which is not only disinclined towards working for the development of the people, but is also grossly inefficient and irresponsible. The only logical next step that is expected after the revelation made by the Finance department report is that the Chief Minister himself takes a call on the issue, identifies the culprits and initiates punitive action against them.