Man on Charge

Intro: Will the new Chief Minister of Jharkhand adopt Modi’s style of functioning administration which is widely debated in the bureaucratic circle?

The new Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das has swung to action to deliver results after the NDA alliance won majority in assembly election with a promise for development. “I am not going to set 100 days or six months deadline to show result. But after six months you will definitely see the improvement. Development is the only priority of the government. Initiating work culture, work environment and people oriented governance is the principal philosophy of the government,” Das said after assuming charge as 10th Chief Minister.

Carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000; tandem of bureaucrats and greedy politicians added by feeble and unstable governments made Jharkhand a basket case creating chaos and anarchy. Successive governments failed to deliver.
Hence not trusting lethargic state bureaucrats Das decided to appoint Bihar cadre IAS Sanjay Kumar as his Principal Secretary who is set to assume charge. Das is aware of the challenge before him as road is full of thorns and his political survival depends on how quickly he performs.
With first cabinet meeting Das took some drastic decisions including forming a committee which is supposed to furnish reports on a lakh of vacant posts in the government departments as recruitment process remained pending due to indecision of successive governments. Union Minister of State (Finance), Jayant Sinha met Chief Minister Das and explained the priorities. “Road, irrigation and power are our top most priorities. In short I can say god days of Jharkhand have arrived. We have discussed major pending projects in the state and centre will provide all support to the government,” Sinha told the media after meeting Das in Ranchi on December 31.
Will Das, who has obvious support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopt Modi’s style of functioning in running administration? This topic is widely debated in the bureaucratic circle which is aware of new regime will be a tough tasks master.
“A Direct Monitoring Unit (DMU) is right under discussion which will be headed by Chief Minister himself who will review all outstanding projects on periodical basis. That is a good step,” a senior bureaucrat said. Sources in the government said that a series of mega infrastructural development projects for Jharkhand’s capital town Ranchi, sub-capital Dumka, industrial towns Jamshedpur and Dhanbad may soon be announced.
Significantly except Dumka all these three districts are covered under central government’s ambitious JNNURM project for the development of its urban infrastructure. But on the JNNURM’s score card Jharkhand performed poorly not even being able to utilise funds worth Rs 10,000 crore.
Controlling Left Wing Extremism spreading wings rapidly in Jharkhand will be the major headache for the Das government with alarming reports of parts of Jharkhand like Ranchi, Pakur, Sahenbganj and others are becoming hotbed of terrorist outfits like Indian Mujahideen. So poor is state policing that successive state governments failed to create Special Task Force to counter terrorism.
Anti-naxal operations in Jharkhand are set to intensify in the coming days as state government is understood to have decided to complete land allotment process to Central Para Military Forces to establish more bases in naxal hit localities in Jharkhand including Gumla and Khunti.
                                                    —Abha Bharti from Ranchi