More about Patna Municipal Commissioner Kuldip Narayan, his proposal of rail ticket auction, other “fuzzy thoughts”

Kuldip Narayan: "A simple person in wilderness"

THE Patna High Court on Monday stayed the suspension of 2005 batch IAS Kuldip Narayan as Patna Municipal Commissioner, giving relief to the officer known in his circle as honest and the one who took on the city’s builders lobby. Though the officer was suspended for his inability to spend allocated fund for two consecutive financial years, it was highly suspected that he became the victim of the powerful political-builders nexus. As the case is on, with the High Court asking the state government to submit papers related to the case on Tuesday, BoI here attempts to know the officer more: how he proposed auctioning of cinema and railway tickets (like spectrum) and how he openly criticised the...
the rail PSU, IRCTC for dumping passengers. Narayan is not a frequent blogger, but he wrote a few short but interesting pieces called Fuzzy Thoughts: Kuldip's Musings in his personal blog. In one of such write-ups, dated February 28, 2012, Narayan argued that it is the time to start auctioning cinema tickets, railway tickets, match tickets etc. when demand exceeds supply and consequently there is black marketing. “Let’s first understand, why there is black marketing. Black marketing is because market value is more than fixed price and demand exceeds supply. This is exactly what happens in case of blockbuster movies. Same is scenario in case of alleged misuse of tatkal tickets by some…”he wrote.
“Logic would be that auctioning of tatkal railway ticket will bring more money to govt coffers… I am not offering any solution but just giving food for thought…” he further added.
In another post titled “Again IRCTC dumps passengers…”, Narayan mentioned how railway passengers face problem in getting tatkal tickets as they often find on the screen that the site is under maintenance. “I hope booking agents also see the same screen and not only direct users,” he wrote.
Narayan began writing those pieces since 2008, but for the last two years, he has not written any new post on his blog, KuldipNarayan dot blogspot dot in.
Narayan in his blog describes himself as “a simple person in wilderness”.
He adds: “I graduated to become an engineer but landed up in administration. I joined IAS in 2005. My present job requires maintaining dynamic equilibrium and lead in positive direction. I consistently try to find simple solutions to complex problems”.