Karnataka bureaucrats spar in public

Bureaucrats in the Siddaramaiah government have taken to washing dirty linen in public.

On Thursday, IAS officer Rashmi V Mahesh of the 1996 batch, who is the Director-General of Administrative Training Institute (ATI), Mysore, sought the aid of the media to attack her senior, and predecessor Amita Prasad (1985 batch), against whom she has already lodged a complaint.

Rashmi, who has pressed for a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the ATI, said the extent of the scam was close to Rs 100 crore, during Amita Prasad’s tenure.

Rashmi said the assault on her at the ATI on Wednesday following the death of a gazetted manager was pre-meditated. It was a fallout of her attempts to check rampant corruption in the institute. In her complaint lodged with the police late on Wednesday, she held the employees of Bharani Catering, Bangalore, who she said had benefited from irregularities at ATI, responsible for the attack.

She complained of facing hostilities from some employees as accountability was increased and leakage of funds were reduced.

“Their latent thoughts were inflamed by the fact that the former DG (Amita Prasad) continued to retain and use the official DG quarters and she would conduct meetings of all disgruntled staff, tenderers and officials.

Further, on and off, during the last two weeks  the former DG and her husband and ADGP Intelligence A M Prasad were living at ATI. It is but a strange coincidence that such an event occurs just a day after they formally vacated the DG quarters,” she said

Similarly, at a high level meeting at Chief Minister’s home office Krishna on Wednesday, Commerce and Industries department Additional Chief Secretary K Ratna Prabha had a heated argument with Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda and Chief Minister’s Additional Chief Secretary D N Narasimha Raju.

Ratna Prabha took exception to Gowda complaining to the chief minister of delay by her department in fixing compensation for land being acquired for industrial purpose in his home district Kolar. Ratna Prabha hit back at Gowda and said the price fixation committee was headed by district deputy commissioners and not her department.

The chief minister later pacified the officer. Earlier, during the meeting, tempers flared between Ratna Prabha and Narasimha Raju. Ratna Prabha, a senior IAS officer, objected to Raju obtaining information related to the Industries department directly from a subordinate officer.

Ratna Prabha asked him to follow the protocol of obtaining information from the department head. “I am responsible for all the issues as head of the department. What if the junior officer gives wrong information to the chief minister,” she said.

In May this year, then Additional director-general of Police, KSRP, P Ravindranath, had a public spat with then Bangalore Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar.

After being accused of taking pictures of a woman at a Bangalore coffee shop, Ravindranath had charged Auradkar with hatching a conspiracy to malign him. He had even filed a case against Auradkar and another IPS officer B R Ravikanthe Gowda under the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act. Ravindranath had also publicly criticised ADGP Intelligence, A M Prasad, accusing him of treating him as a “dalit” and not as an IPS officer.