Arvind Kejriwal govt provokes bureaucrat by making engineer PWD HoD

In what seems to be a direct attempt to curtail the role of bureaucracy in its day-to-day functioning, the AAP government is said to have decided to replace some of its officers with engineers and doctors. The AAP government’s move to appoint doctors and engineers seems to be the fallout of a day’s mass casual leave protest by Danics and IAS officers in wake of suspension of two special secretaries of the city home department for allegedly refusing to sign two Cabinet notes.

The government has now given charge of public works department secretary to PWD engineer-in-chief Sarvagya Srivastava, The order to this effect has been issued by none other than PWD minister Satyendar Jain. Prior to this order, Mr Jain had given Mr Srivastava additional charge of PWD special secretary (works).

The copy of the earlier order accessed by this newspaper said: “In continuation of this office even order No. 864-75 dated 19.01.2016 and in exercise of powers conferred under Rule 15 and 16 of the Transaction of Business of the Government of National Capital territory of Delhi Rules, 1993 (TBR) and in supersession of all previous orders in this regard, the following order designation in the PWD are hereby assigned to the officers. Sarvagya Srivastava, engineer-in-chief of public works department (PWD) has been given additional charge of special secretary (works) of the PWD.”

A highly-placed source said that Mr Jain’s move to give additional charge of the special secretary to Mr Srivastava has not gone well with a section of bureaucrats who feel that the government was unnecessarily targeting them and undermining their authority by allocating bureaucratic work to doctors and engineers. “The decision-making process and policy framing is the sole prerogative of the bureaucrats.”

Earlier, the AAP government had appointed Dr Ashish Goyal (orthopaedics) of the Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital as the additional secretary of the city administration’s health and family welfare department. Dr P.K. Malik, assistant medical superintendent of the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital was also posted as additional secretary in health and family welfare department.

A senior IAS officer said that by appointing people from medical and engineering fields, the AAP government was trying to send a clear signal to the bureaucracy that if they do not fall in line by following its dictates, the administration would then be open to other options by replacing them with other professionals. “Instead of bridging the gap between the council of ministers and bureaucrats, the AAP government is creating more barriers.”

Another senior bureaucrat said that the doctors and the engineers were primarily trained to carry out works of their respective fields and they hardly had any experience to carry out decisions related to policy making of the government.

However, a technocrat said that the things were the other way round. “An engineer can easily devise a policy, but no bureaucrat without studying engineering can draw construction designs. Same is the case with doctors. A heart surgeon can frame guidelines and polices of the health sector, but can you imagine any IAS officer performing a heart surgery.”