The recent outburst of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah against his ministers, telling them to deliver or quit has more to it than meets the eye.
Insiders reveal that there is a storm brewing at the ministerial level in the state with each minister trying to pass on the blame for non-performance to the principal secretary to the Chief Minister.
This growing insecurity among almost all the ministers in Abdullahs cabinet, as per highly placed bureaucratic sources, owes largely to the ministers lack of administrative knowledge about systems and procedures.
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They often refer files pertaining to matters which lie fully within their ministerial powers to the Chief Minister, through the principal secretary. Sending these files to the Chief Minister only amounts to avoidable red-tape. Invariably, these files are sent back with notings that the matter lies within the ministers administrative powers, says a senior level officer in the secretariat.
What is worrying the bureaucracy in the state is the fact that despite many of the present ministers having served in the past as well, their ignorance about administrative powers cannot be totally blamed on inexperience.
The disgust of the Chief Minister with his ministers could not have found a more volatile expression than the one during which he asked the states director of information K B Jandial to by-pass the state information minister Bashir Ahmad Nengroo and report matters directly to the Chief Minister who also holds the cabinet charge for the information department.
The minister is presently learnt to be approaching some of the journalists close to the Chief Minister to see that he is rehabilitated.
In this war between the ministers and the state bureaucracy, the Chief Minister appears to have decided to side with the bureaucracy. Abdullah has publicly told his ministers to learn to take work from the bureaucrats and not blame them for ministerial inaction.
The ministers are now worried because their tirade against the States Principal Secretary is already boomeranging.
They have been also told to furnish performance reports relating to their departments so that their efficacy in the government can be judged. It seems this time Farooq Abdullah would not like his government to be know as the one that reigns, but does not rule.