Delhi’s power corridor feels the heat of monsoon fury; normal work paralyzed

THE work in many government offices in Delhi got disrupted as heavy rains accompanied by strong wind lashed the city Friday afternoon. Whereas a number of appointments and meetings got cancelled, and many bureaucrats were caught up in hours long traffic jams across Lutyen’s Delhi, premises of many key ministries including commerce and industry, steel, urban development and power witnessed severe water logging forcing even the powerful babus encountering real-time monsoon of the current season. The only area that escaped the virtual flash flood was the relatively higher zone of North and South Blocks housing several important ministries such as home, finance, PMO and defence though the officers who were out in the city at that point of time faced the nightmare of Delhi’s one of the worst traffic jam situationa during the recent time. Though falling of trees were seen in premises of many government offices in the capital, none of the buildings witnessed a similar fate as that of Indira Gandhi international airport where a part of the roof in the departure terminal was blown off by the wind, which raised many a question regarding the design of the airport being modernised on a public private partnership mode with GMR group holding the majority stake. Govt may adopt a new agenda for administrative reforms The government may adopt a new agenda for reforms in administration to meet the challenges of the changing times, minister of state for personnel, public grievances & pensions Prithviraj Chavan hinted while inaugurating a day-long conference of state secretaries of the administrative reforms held in New Delhi on Friday. The institution of Prime Minister’s Awards which recognize the best practitioners of administration in wide ranging areas from education, transportation, health, service delivery, policing, environment and urban governance, has given an impetus towards bringing many of the ‘Best Practices’ in administration to limelight, he added. Secretary of administrative reforms and pension Rajni Razdan said that the thrust areas in government reform included transparency, accountability and efficiency among others. Read: "ARC recommendations to be implemented with speed, says Prime Minister; RTI Act to be improved" posted on August 15, 2009.

Action & Appoitments a) The appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) has rejected the proposal for inter-cadre deputation of Praveen Kumar Raghav, IFS (J&K, 2000) from Jammu & Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh. b) Central deputation tenure of 1981 batch IAS of MP cadre Amar Singh, joint secretary, ministry of rural development has been extended for a period of three months. c) M G V K Bhanu, a 1985 batch Assam cadre IAS, presently on inter cadre deputation to the state of Andhra Pradesh, may be repatriated to his parent cadre of Assam-Meghalaya by the end of September 2009.