Pallam Raju absence brings HRD ministry to standstill

Absence of Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister M M Pallam Raju at his office is taking a toll on the normal functioning of the ministry each day since he tendered his resignation to protest against the Union Cabinet’s decision to create a separate state of Telangana.

Though the Raju “is taking care of important files” of his ministry while discharging his duty from his residence, “awaiting” acceptance of his resignation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he has stopped physically attending meetings of his ministry and other important programmes.

A day-long meeting of the council of the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) here remained inconclusive at the end of the day on October 18, as Raju did not attend it.
The council’s meeting was significant because there were many important issues on its agenda, including a proposal to increase the tuition fee of the institutes.

The NIT directors and the HRD Ministry officials discussed the agenda items and expressed their views on them, but no final decision could be taken even on a single issue as it required presence of Raju in the meeting. Union Higher Education Secretary Ashok Thakur presided over the meeting but left it half-way in about an hour, leaving it for other officials in the Ministry to discuss the things.

A HRD official maintained that the absence of the minister from the council’s meeting did not matter as minutes of the issues discussed there would be brought to his notice for “further action”.

“Minutes of the meeting may be later brought before the minister and decisions  be taken on issues accordingly. But, what is the purpose of such meetings where we could have live interactions with the minister on various issues,” an NIT Director told Deccan Herald, requesting anonymity.

Before this, the Union minister skipped the meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education, which is considered to be the highest decision making body on education.  
Apparently, with Raju coming out of the meeting, the ministry on Saturday postponed a crucial annual meeting of the National Monitoring Committee for Minorities’ Education, which was scheduled for October 31, to discuss a host of issues relating to education among religious minorities, including Muslims.