Centre criticises Kurien's move

Even though Verghese Kurien is trying to mobilise support in New Delhi to continue as chairman of the Institute of Rural management -Anand (IRMA), he does not seem to be making much ground.

This is because the Centre, the Gujarat government and IRMA's significant stakeholders have sharply criticised his role as chairman of the institute.

Kurien, who has also met President APJ Abdul Kalam during his support-gathering trip to New Delhi, received a big blow recently when both the Centre and the Modi Government in Gujarat refused to fall in line with him in the entire IRMA controversy. Kurien had triggered a controversy recently by sacking K Prathap Reddy as director of the institute.

In two separate letters written to Kurien recently, JK Mohapatra, joint secretary in the ministry of rural development, and Vipul Mittra, secretary in Gujarat's rural development department, have come down heavily on the septuagenarian based in India's 'milk city,' Anand.

The copies of these two letters, which are with Business Standard, show that Kurien's role in the entire IRMA controversy is not been backed by both the Centre and he state government in spite of his lobbying in New Delhi.

Interestingly, both Mahapatra and Mittra, senior IAS officers, walked out of a stormy April 15 meeting of the IRMA board, along with Amrita Patel, chairman of the National Development Dairy Board (NDDB).

While Mittra attended the meeting as a representative of the Gujarat government, Mahapatra was there representing Amar Singh, joint secretary in the ministry of rural development, government of India. Singh had not been able to attend the meeting because of preoccupation.

In a two-page letter to Kurien, Mohapatra clearly said the government did not like the way Reddy was removed from his post. Mohapatra also put on record his criticism of some of Kurien's recent administrative moves "on behalf of the Government of India".

The letter (DO No-T-17011/18/03/Trg) says: "The services of Dr K Prathap Reddy, Director and Member-Secretary of IRMA, had not been terminated following prescribed procedure. Since the termination of his services was invalid, Dr Amar Singh, joint secretary of this ministry, had approved a circular resolution on this issue on April 12, 2005. Before the board of governors commenced discussions on the listed business on April 15, I had also pointed out that the power of appointment as well as termination of a director vests with the board and not with the Chairman."

Saying he had pointed out that neither the termination of the services of Reddy nor the appointment of LK Vaswani as the acting-director was valid as per prescribed procedures, Mohapatra stated, "Accordingly, Vaswani did not have the due authority to attend the meeting on April 15."

Mohapatra also mentioned that these facts were brought to Kurien's notice in the meeting room on April 15.

"Mittra had also brought to your notice the issue of legality involving termination of Dr Reddy and allowing Vaswani to act as member-secretary of the board. However, our objections were overruled by you."