Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna is contemplating a move to appoint a financial adviser in the hill state and holding consultations with senior Congress leaders in New Delhi to resolve various issues confronting his government.
Bahuguna has proposed the name of Indu Kumar Pande, a retired state chief secretary, as the financial adviser to him in the face of “financial sickness” which has set in the hill state owing to burgeoning non-plan expenditures as well as rising debts.
A section of the bureaucracy in the state has opposed the move tooth and nail saying there is no need to create such “parallel finance department”. “This is a wrong move to create post of a financial adviser when the whole department is working fine, said a top government official. “If there is any financial sickness in the state, it has come due to some wrong political policies of the previous BJP government. If the chief minister really wants to remove sickness, he can do it by taking some bold measures.”
The official said rehabilitating retired babus in the government jobs was itself wrong move which create extra burden on the government’s exchequer. Additional chief secretary Alok Kumar Jain, who is heading the finance department, has also threatened to go on leave in case Pande is made the new financial adviser, the sources said.
“The bureaucracy is divided,” said the official. “One section of the bureaucracy wants the post of finance adviser, other section is opposing the move bitterly.”
On the other hand, Bahuguna claims that the state is facing financial sickness due to burgeoning non-plan expenditure of Rs 13,000 crore when the state’s total budget is around Rs 21,000 crore. It is in this context that the post of financial adviser is being created.
Interestingly, chief secretary Subhash Kumar has suggested to the government to make Pande as an adviser to the state planning commission, the sources said.
Meanwhile, new finance minister Indira Hridayesh is also upset with Bahuguna for not getting prominent portfolios in addition to parliamentary affairs. Similarly, Dinesh Agarwal, Harish Chandra Durgapal and several other cabinet ministers are also staying away from their offices as they are not happy with the portfolio distribution, the sources said.
Meanwhile, Bahuguna has flown to Delhi again to hold consultations with the party high command on various issues. He is understood to have held talks on the filling the remaining cabinet berth in his ministry.
