Rajeev Nagotra
Two interesting developments took place over the last two days in Jammu. Whereas one deserves appreciation, the other would typically pass off as just another hogwash but nonetheless must be highlighted and criticized so as to avoid a repeat performance. The cases in point are (a) DM’s drive against plastic kite flying thread and (b) DyCM constituting committees of engineers to visit Delhi and Gujarat and study power distribution.
Kudos to the District Magistrate Sh. Simrandeep Singh who followed up his ban on the sale of the “Chinese dor” with actual confiscation of the banned material from the different areas of the city. This illustrates how a well-meaning executive should work in a democracy. One point, however, needs some pondering over and that is as to why the police failed to carry out the ban in letter and spirit in the first place. If the DM’s office is the arm of our dispensation that issues the orders and instructions for administering a district, the police is the hand that ensures their implementation on ground. The DM does not have to step into the streets every time an order requires implementation. How could the traders of this banned thread prevail upon the police and not upon a team of ADC and the social activists? Does the police department need some re-orientation in carrying out such tasks which, by the way, are way simpler than catching terrorists?
As for the other news concerning the PDD and its minister Dr. Nirmal Singh, the foremost question a common man may ask is this – What does a JE, AE, AEE, or even a Chief engineer learn about power distribution during his 4-year B.E degree course? Surely, power distribution and networks are the most fundamental of the concepts taught and (supposedly) learnt in an electrical engineering programme. If after serving the government for their entire lives these highly paid officials are not even capable of tackling such basic points, what good are they? Sending their committees to other states to learn how to distribute power is a blatant joke to say the least. Even the not-so-educated-lineman, if guaranteed amnesty, is capable of offering some insightful suggestions on this problem. Anyway, it is anybody’s guess that the theft of power is at the root of most of the issues plaguing this ministry. The industrialists know how to get their electricity bills running into lakhs reduced or even written off.
The aam aadmi knows how to pay the bill for only two bulbs and two fans while enjoying an AC the entire season and cooking both the meals on an electric heater. Not just this, even a slum dwellers living near the Tawi just a road turn off the Governor’s house in Panjtirthi know how to manage lighting as well as cooking using power without having any metered connections. When it comes to electricity, the corruption is perceptible at each stratum of the society. And, addressing this problem head on is, frankly speaking, too bitter a pill for any popular leader to swallow. In principle, a leader is not the one who meets all of his constituency’s whimsical demands and lets it degenerate. A leader, on the contrary, is like a teacher, a mentor, who leads by example, promotes good practices amongst his people, and ensures that a delinquency does not go unpunished under his jurisdiction. While doing so he might have to swallow a little unpopularity, but in the end, he succeeds in cleansing the society and making it healthier. In the entire cabinet of J&K Government, who would be a better teacher than Prof. Nirmal Singh himself? Sending these officers on tours to other states would be beating about the bushes. The society including the minister and these PDD staff knows all too well how to solve this problem. Let us see if Prof. Singh is willing to taste the bitter pill.
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