Nath wants his officers to change attitude, appeals them to aspire for recognition

UNION minister of road transport and highways Kamal Nath’s appeal to his officials to change in attitude to have a sense of fulfilment and recognition is believed to be well in line with a few UPA ministers’ “make it or break it” policy to bring in changes in their ministries or departments. Setting an ambitious target of building 20 km of highways per day, particularly in the backdrop of virtual roadblocks to progress of highway project during the last government, Mr Nath is aware that targets would be achievable only if officers put in their extra bit. As many as 38 public private partnership (PPP) projects bid out by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) before the last Lok Sabha polls received no bid at all, explaining the state of affairs of the road programme which was successfully rexecuted by the earlier regime of the BJP. Mr Nath, who visited the NHAI office in Delhi’s Dwarka area a couple of days ago, stressed upon complete sense of urgency and asked the officials to bring the issues to his notice which require his intervention. He called upon every official to have one common objective and to play their role in keeping India on a growth trajectory by building good highways. He urged NHAI officials for a change in the work culture to speed up the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP).

Govt to amend RIT to facilitate better disclosure, says Chavan The government has proposed to amend the laws to provide for disclosure by government in all non-strategic areas. It is proposed to review the number of organizations in the second schedule to the Right to Information Act, 2005 and make rules for more disclosure of information by public authorities, minister of state in the ministry of personnel, public grievances & pensions, Prithviraj Chavan said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, July 8. Non-Governmental Organisations and Social activists, which have largely expressed doubts about the proposed amendments, will be consulted. Significantly, no time-frame has fixed for completion of the process. Stats for 2008-09 No. of RTI cases disposed of : 13322 No. of RTI cases pending as on April 1, 2009: 8924 Action & Appointments

The tenure of Kumar Sanjay Krishna, a 1985 batch Assam cadre IAS, and joint secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), has been extended for a period of three months up to November, 15, 2009 or until further orders. Mr Krishna had earlier served as a joint secretary in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).