Since assuming office in 2015, the Kejriwal-led govt has been at loggerheads with senior bureaucrats.
This is not the first time that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has been in a war with its senior bureaucrats. The tussle between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the bureaucrats goes way back to the year he assumed office in 2015. From asking the bureaucrats to get out of their air-conditioned chambers and visit field offices to holding them responsible for the choked drains in the Capital, the government has been quite expressive with their words.
In 2015, the AAP government had opposed the appointment of senior IAS officer Shakuntala Gamlin as the acting Delhi Chief Secretary. He had accused Gamlin of favouring power companies and claimed that she wanted to trick the government into signing documents which would give Rs 11,000 crore to these firms.
Senior bureaucrats working with the government claimed that AAP ministers and leaders have been 'interfering' in their day-to-day functioning. Even recently, Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash had shot off a letter to all principal secretaries to validate all the orders passed with his name, failing which the officer will have to bear the loss, if any.
"In many cases, the orders are passed without the Lieutenant Governor's knowledge and then it leads to confusion. The onus of passing the order now falls on the officer and if there are any discrepancies or loss to the exchequer, the concerned officer will have to bear the loss," a senior government official said.
Former Delhi PWD Principal Secretary Ashwani Kumar was at loggerheads with the Kejriwal government over various issues including desilting of drains ahead of the monsoon season and PWD proposals, among others.
The Delhi Dialogue Commission had also blamed Kumar for the delay in the construction of Barapullah Phase 3.
Kejriwal had asked the commission for a report on the delay. The project, which was initially scheduled for completion in October 2017, has been hanging in a lurch for the past two years due to the delay in the acquisition of 2.5 acre of land in the Yamuna floodplains.
Former CEO of the Delhi Jal Board Keshav Chandra had a heated argument with the members of the Privilege Committee of the Delhi Assembly when he was summoned in connection with a case related to irregularities in the tendering process of 14 sewage treatment plants along the Yamuna.
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