Lest lack of the State Government’s control over administrative officers forms crux of a discussion, revenue minister S.N.Patro has told the Orissa Legislative Assembly on 17th by way of answer to a question from member Gobardhan Das that, action against habitual defaulters in submission of property list is being contemplated.
But the revelation that comes from his answer is that as many as 78 officers of Orissa Administrative Service (OAS) are not honoring government orders to submit their respective property list.
The minister has confessed that when these 78 officers have never revealed their property, the rest 1246 OAS officers, comprising 1123 of Junior branch and 123 of Senior branch) have not submitted their property lists since 2008.
The OAS officers, notwithstanding junior and senior branches, being entirely in the coveted Class-1 cadre from the beginning, with every department manned by them as administrators, occupy primacy in Orissa administration and all other cadres derive their cadre behavior from these officers and the trend they set.
If these officers are so very disrespectful to government orders and governing laws, and the government has not been able as yet to punish them for the offenses against rule of law and official directions, can there ever be any difficulty in grasping what anarchy Naveen Patnaik’s nonchalant chief ministership has pushed the State into?
Let us wait and watch if the Assembly takes up this answer for a special discussion as the issue so clamantly calls for.