Vested interests train guns on Jairaj

Vested interests train guns on Jairaj
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Senior IAS officer K Jairaj known for his astute style of administration seems to be in trouble within five months after he took over as the commissioner of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP).

Almost all sections of civic body are said to be not happy with his style of functioning. The contractors and city MLAs are lobbying for his transfer, sources said.

Administrative checks:

First thing Jairaj did after assuming office was to order an audit of all works completed with bills pending. BMP never came out with any information about the outcome of the audit, but the internal auditors successfully deterred the engineers from taking any risks.

All the zonal ward works too, came to an end with the commissioner ensuring a cut in the ceiling on the cost of piece works. Most zonal ward works and works under mayoral grants are taken as piece works. The reduction in upper limit from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh put a spanner in civic works.

To make matters worse, the commissioner also withheld the work-files that had council approval. That hit the contractor-councillor-engineer nexus where it really hurt.

Good intentions, no results:

The commissioner was also successful in getting all the special grants cut from the BMP budget and he confined BMP only to spillover works.

But the most city MLAs and councillors across the party lines feel that stopping the works cannot eliminate corruption. BMP is as corrupt as any government agency and less work would certainly mean less corruption but no work can be more expensive than zero works, said an MLA.

Politicians slighted:

Jairaj is loath to politicians and he made it amply clear when he did not bother about Mayor while announcing his Suvarna Bengaluru initiative. Many were surprised at the commissioner’s idea of packaging regular housekeeping tasks as Suvarna Bengaluru.

Interestingly, the scheme has a separate PRO. The political executive at BMP many times had to cut its work inspections and meetings short following instructions from the commissioner’s office.

In effect, civic officials are demoralised, politicians are listless and contractors scared to work with BMP. It would not be easy for Jairaj to defend zero works on the grounds of disciplining the system.