Tuesday, 16 June 2015

to pm-kerala chief secretary bluffing-160615

File: Pers/Comp/pm-csk lies-160615                                                                         16 Jun 2015

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

Please find attached herewith two reports that had appeared in the regional daily, Malayala Manorama, on 11/6/2015.

doc1-gail-csk ltr to pm-mmpkd-110615.jpg is a report about a letter written by the Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala, Jiji Thomson to you. The essence of the report is that, while agreeing that in the last 15 years only 50 kms of the 505 kms of pipeline has been laid, he has accused GAIL of dragging its feet on the work now. On the other hand he claims that the Government of Kerala has taken serious steps to expedite the work. Of course the first such step he claims is he has been made responsible for expediting the work! The next steps are:

  1. The Chief Minister will be convening an all party meet towards this month end or early next month!
  2. Collectors of 7 districts, through which the pipeline will be passing, have been appointed as nodal officers!
  3. A team of 5 officers under each Collector for supervision.
  4. Police protection for survey!
  5. Extension of the tenure of Competent Authority for revenue documentation by six months from 31 May 2015!

Now, as a permannet resident of of Kerala for the last 17 years, I can say with enough conviction that the public servants in Kerala are worse than the headload workers here who have earned notority for claiming ‘nookkukooli‘ for looking at people who are working! My interventions with the Right to Information Act has provided me enough documents to even postulate that all public servants are either idiots or traitors unless proved otherwise! The futility of the tall claims implied in the steps enumerated above can be easily proven with just one example- of the failure of the Collectorate, Palakkad to comply with the orders of the Government of Kerala to issue receipts to the public for documents submitted by them to the public authorities. The Govt of Kerala has been issuing circulars repeatedly since 1/1/2005 and the one issued on 12/1/2009 even directs the public authorities to display the format of the receipt in a board of specific size for the informationof the public! (Copy of this circular is attached as KeralaGovtCirNo168-AR 13 -2-09-UBPV dated 12 jan 2009.pdf) While my specific complaints on failure to comply with this order had not elicited any response, my follow up with applications under the RTI Act have been responded with the perfunctory phrase ‘directions have been given to issue receipts‘ without any further action being taken to ensure that these directions have been complied with! In response to complaints to the Chief Minister, the District Collector has given only false reports that receipts are being given as generated by the application DC Suite and that receipts as per prescribed format shall be issued only when printed receipt forms are made available! (Copy of the latest such response from the DC is attached as comp-cmk-dcpkd-receipts-fm dcpkd-210415.pdf). That ‘receipts are being given as generated by the application DC Suite‘ is a lie as can be proved by the documents in my posession!

Continued....




-2-

There is no need to wonder what issuing receipts has to do with actions taken to progres the laying of gas pipeline. When a simple thing like issuing receipts could not be implemented in 10 years and the public servants can carry on lying without any shame or being held accountable, is there any need to believe the opportunistic claims made by the Chief Secretary of the State who incidentally is  also an accused in the Palmolien import case! Yes, the very same case involvement in which had led to the  apex court holding the appointment of a former CVC untenable!

The other media report, doc2-gail-conflict at alanghat-mmpkd-110615.jpg, attached also proves how futile the assurances given by the Chief Secretary will remain. This report is about public protest when a team reached Alanghad for carrying out survey of the land for laying the piple line.

Well, the density of population in Kerala is quite high and land acquisition is a very, very serious problem indeed. And gas piple lines passing through populated areas do pose serious threats to the people living in the vicinity and their fears cannot be just trampled upon! Now look at the ineptitude of the government in evicting encroachers from land acquired for the National Highway. Attached is a report from Malayala Manorama of 16/6/15 -crime-dc pkd-nh encroachment-mmpkd-160615.jpg- which shows how the District adminstration in Palakkad has failed to evict some structures and encroachments from the land belonging to the National Highway Authority at Vadakkencherry! The report says that teams of officials with police had gone there 7 times and returned without being able to perform their task!  Now is there anything left to imagine about the onerous nature of the task of surveying, acquiring and clearing land for a project that poses potential threat to human lifes?

Yours truly,

P M Ravindran

Sri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister- through email, pmindia@pmindia.nic.in

Copy to:

Mr Jiji Thomson, Chief Secretary- through e mail, chiefsecy@kerala.gov.in

Ms Mary Issac, District Collector, Palakakd- through e mail,  dcpkd@kerala.nic.in,  pkd_collectorate@messaging.kerala.gov.in

Media- through e mail

Blog at http://raviforjustice.blogspot.in



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