Major policy flaws revealed in meet
Major wrongdoings by top brass of the city administration, which is under President’s Rule for the past six months, came to light at a recent high- level meeting chaired by then chief secretary Sanjay Srivastava. A series of directions have also been passed in connection with officials sending requisitions to fill up vacancies in violation of rules, wrongful transfer of six acre land to a private party, transgression of authority of the Deen Dayal Uphadyay Hospital by the city police and measures to be taken to boost revenue collections which had seen a sharp decline during the past few months.
A highly placed source said that Mr Srivastava referred to a case where approximately six acres of land handed over to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in 2013 was “fraudulently” transferred to a private party by the officials of the revenue department. He reportedly expressed his anguish over the manner in which the case was handled by the deputy commissioner ( south) and directed the revenue department to take appropriate action to ensure mutation of the land was in favour of the government. The principal secretary ( revenue) is said to have agreed to take action in a time bound manner. A senior officer said that the principal secretary ( revenue) stated during the meeting that the revue collections during the last four months were a matter of concern and the government expenditure had exceeded the revenue collections. He is said to have emphasised on the curtailment of all non- essential expenditures till November. Sharing his concern, Mr Srivastava directed the revenue earning departments — VAT, revenue, transport and excise units — to take immediate measures to boost revenue collections.
In this direction, he reportedly emphasised on plugging of revenue leakages and sharing of relevant data amongst revenue earning departments. Mr Srivastava cautioned that the performance of the heads of these departments would be watched and their non- performance reports would be recorded in their respective ACR.
Mr Srivastava also directed the Delhi Jal Board to ensure that those employees who were facing corruption charges should not continue in the same posts.