Minister shuns wireless
access protocol
By Deepal Trevedie
A
minister recently returned mobile phone to the government. Because he
found the government ceiling on the mobile bills too unreasonable.
The Keshubhai Patel government
which nevertheless believes in giving good facilities to its ministers
(after it came to power installed additional telephones at the residences
and offices of every minister) decided that there should be a ceiling
on the mobile bills of ministers.
There is one particular
Cabinet minister from Saurashtra whose monthly mobile bill has once
been Rs 54,686. Well, so the Keshubhai Patel government' s decision
that the government will pay only Rs 2,600 every month towards the mobile
bill of the ministers and that the ministers would have to pay the remaining
dues definitely did not go well with the ministers rather all of them.
While every one continues
to crib, Mahendra Trivedi returned his cell phone saying he could not
afford it. This has sparked off a controversy. Do the ministers get
adequate facilities or are the facilities provided to them grossly inadequate?
I personally feel that
they are more than adequate. Cabinet minister Jaynarayna Vyas, while
on a panel discussion said that considering the present ceiling on mobile
bills, every day a person can talk only for 13 minutes on his cell phone.
This is if he wants to
stay within the bill of Rs 2,600. He says most of the times, 13 minutes
go off while talking to one person on the phone.
I personally feel that
no voter or a common man calls up a minister on his mobile phone. How
many people with genuine problems talk to ministers on their mobile.
Mobile phones are only meant for the middlemen, well wishers, industrialist
friends and those who belong to the inner circuit of ministers. At present,
every minister has four telephones at home & office and they have
fax and email facilities.
And to top it all they
have wireless sets installed in their official vehicle, which makes
easy for their office to contact. Aren't there means of communications
adequate? Well, the ministers in the UK and the US also do not have
all these facilities and they are developed countries. And while we
term India as a developing nation, the World Bank and the super powers
actually rate us as an underdeveloped country only. But still, our ministers
are better placed than the ministers in France, the UK or the US.
Look at the free facilities
they get. All at our cost. Free furnished bungalows, free electricity,
free Water connections, free Cielos, free security, free administrative
staff, free medical services, huge travel allowances. But still, dil
maange more!
Keshubhai Patel's government
decided that everyone would travel by economy class only, when the ministers
are required to travel by air.
This is to save money.
However, all those who go to Delhi go by business class. All those who
travel abroad too look for better options than economy class. Some ministers
in Keshubhai's government have travelled by first class. More space,
more liquor, better service?. But at Whose cost? Our money and our cost.
Earning
money while serving people of state
From Monday to Thursday,
every minister is supposed to remain present in the Sachivalaya only
and attend to the 'praja na prashno (The problems of the people).
Every minister gets money
for the petrol they use at per km rate. And the money they get is more
than the market rate of petrol. A senior minister himself admitted that
he saves one rupee per km from the money that government gives him.
Not only that. These ministers often travel in between from Mondays
to Thursdays and these are travels meant to please a particular section
only. Moreover, ministers travel 200km to 400 km to inaugurate a computer
class or a kusthi competition. Well, that's really unfair on
the public. I wish just like Keshubhai Patel government put a ceiling
on the use of mobile phone bills, he should decide that no minister
who travels between Mondays and Thursdays except in cases of natural
calamity or emergencies should be paid their TA and DA (travel and dearness
allowances).
I was looking at the telephone
and electricity bills of these honourable ministers. Consider this.
There is this junior minister of state, who has become a minister for
the first time whose telephone bill for six months is Rs 7.62 lakhs.
Well, I think Keshubhai should put a ceiling on the use of these telephones
also. For so many chamchas and so-called well wishers of these
ministers go to their ministerial offices and bungalows just to make
free STD calls.
And still, when the next
Assembly session meets in mid-September, I am sure, the government will
boast of the various austerity measures it has introduced to save money.
Why don't they actually implement what they introduce?
Agreed these ministers
are public sevaks and they do need facilities but as Jaynarayan
Vyas himself admitted, there are sure black sheep within the ministry
who are not using the facilities but misusing them.
Gubernatorial
aspirations unfulfilled
A brief capsule of interesting
news:
- Governor Sundar Singh Bhandari these
days must be feeling pretty glum. He was lobbying to be the next president
of the BJP. Now, its going to be
Bangaru Laxman, a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat.
