Friday, 16 October 2020 | Gajendra Singh Negi
Accountability Tussle
After much deliberation, the Uttarakhand cabinet, toeing the line of the union government, has decided to open schools in the state from November 2 albeit in a phased manner. Although the education department is yet to prepare the SOP on school opening and modalities on various aspects of the decision are pending, the school opening debate has gathered momentum after the decision. Unfortunately instead of deliberating on the ways of ensuring safety of the students in the schools and outside them, the focus of the contention is- Who would be responsible for keeping the lives of children safe from the Covid-19 infection? In this debate of accountability, all the stakeholders, the parents of students, school administration and the state government are not prepared to take on the onerous responsibility. Sadly enough, no one is interested to take the view of the students in this whole hullabaloo on accountability. All those involved in this discussion should understand that at present the human race is passing through a phase of deep crisis precipitated by a virus which is unprecedented on many accounts and situation warrants a synergic approach and engaging in passing the buck approach during such times would be dangerous. This challenge is to be taken by the society as a whole and everyone should be on the same page that keeping the children safe from the disease should be the only priority and there cannot be any other thing which is more important than this aspect.
Salary Saga
The agitation of the doctors, nurses and other cadre of the Uttarakhand health services on salary deduction turned out to be the redeemer for all employees as TSR government decided to do away with the salary deduction of one day for all the employees. The salary cut was initiated after the outbreak of Covid-19 in the state for creating a corpus for anti pandemic activities. The deduction was resented by the health workers and their contention that the cut is unfair since they are at the forefront of the war on the pandemic in which their own life is at peril, had merit. It is apparent that all employees were not happy with the salary cut but apart from health workers others thought it prudent not to brag about it. It is learnt that the government under pressure from health workers and in anticipation of an adverse order from the court decided to roll back deduction decision for all the employees. It is imperative that TSR refrained from antagonising the two lakh strong force of employees and wanted that they should not carry the grudge of pay cut to the polling booths in the crucial elections state assembly due in early 2022.
Suitor’s Surge
With TSR clearly stating that he would soon go for the much awaited cabinet expansion to fill three berths in his team, the heartbeat of the potential contenders for the coveted posts has increased. In pursuit of their dream of donning the special suit for the oath taking ceremony, these ministerial aspirants have unleashed all their might and are tapping on the doors of their connections both in Dehradun and Delhi. The anxiety of the aspirants seems somewhat surprising since technically speaking less than a year is left for them to enjoy the real fruit of power and there is a risk of inviting anti incumbency in their respective constituencies when they enter the electoral battle in 2022. But the mad scramble for the ministerial berths suggests that lust of power makes all other things redundant for today’s politicians.
