Buck up, CM tells officials

Taking bureaucrats to task for their 'lethargic attitude', chief minister N Dharam Singh on Thursday warned that stern action awaited non-performers.

Blaming the bureaucracy for 'failures' on the law and order front, drinking water supply and the recent hooch tragedies, he told a meeting of deputy commissioners (DCs) and superintendents of police (SPs) here that "our experience with you in the last one year has not measured up to satisfaction."

The meeting is the second one since September last and in the backdrop of the hooch tragedy that claimed 36 lives in Bangalore rural and Hassan districts. Singh asserted that "Congress-JD(S) coalition is giving a result-oriented government, but the officials have a tendency to behave like they are not concerned with anything."

The chief minister, in his speech, asked the top officials of the administration how many review meetings were held by them and the number of rural visits they undertook to oversee the administration.

"It is an irony that some of the officials do not even know what happens in their jurisdiction till the government sounds them," he said warning that the government will not tolerate 'laxity' on the part of officials.

Singh said that the government will not hesitate to pack non-performing officials home.

"What is the use of keeping officials, when you do not respond to the problems of poor," Singh asked and declared that the government has decided to bring under scanner the performance of all officials. Mincing no words, the chief minister asked the officials to "shed lethargic attitude, as it will have an impact on the government."

Speaking at the same meet, deputy CM Siddaramaiah squarely blamed the government officials for the thriving hooch trade in the state and the recent tragedies in Bangalore rural and Hassan districts.

"The spurious liquor trade cannot flourish without the knowledge of the excise, police and revenue department officials," he said.

He asserted that the government has the 'political will' to put an end to the menace and it will not compromise with the liquor lobby under any circumstance.

Expressing his anguish at the recent deaths caused by spurious liquor, Siddaramaiah said, "I cannot understand why officials are reacting in a passive manner. Do they think they are occupying decorative posts?"

Sharing chief minister N Dharam Singh's opinion that there was a conspiracy to defame the government, he said the two incidents was a black mark on the government.

"Without the indirect support of officials how can they indulge in spurious liquor trade," Siddaramaiah, who holds the excise portfolio, asked and charged that there was no co-ordination between officials of excise and police.

He asked the police to invoke provisions of law and check bootleggers' activities and address the problem with all seriousness.

Siddaramaiah also taunted jail officials for permitting use of mobile phone by a person arrested in connection with illicit liquor and lodged in Gulbarga jail.