Bihar education minister lashes out at officials for ‘negative’ press

Though the minister hasn’t named any official, his anger is believed to be directed at Pathak, a senior IAS officer known for his outspokenness.

Bihar education minister Chandrashekhar has lashed out at “attempts by individual officers to shine their Robinhood image” and warned them to refrain from such actions that spread of “a lot of negativity about his department through media”.

Bihar’s education minister Chandrashekhar. (HT file)

The minister, in a letter issued on Tuesday and addressed to the additional chief secretary (education) K K Pathak, asked officials to leave it to the information and public relations department (IPRD) to regulate information to be shared with media and initiate action against any official found violating it or trying to dramatise or sensationalize any development aimed at improving the system and discussed in closed-door meetings.

Though the minister hasn’t named any official, his anger is believed to be directed at Pathak, a senior IAS officer known for his outspokenness, according to officials familiar with the matter.

As soon as the minister’s letter became public, Opposition BJP come out in the defence of the officer. “The minister is trying to put the blame for his own failures on the IAS officer. If negative things are happening in the education department, the government should accept it, and not try to paper over it and blame an IAS officer who is trying to set things right,” said state BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand.

The ruling JD-U also defended Pathak. “He is a senior officer and known for his work ethics. Whichever department he has served in, he has improved it. Education is an important department. Pathak is trying to improve things with his experience. If anyone is upset with it, I am not aware. I have also come to now about the letter through media only,” said JD-U spokesman Neeraj Kumar.

Pathak was posted in the education department a couple of months ago.

“... information is selectively leaked to malign the image of the department and shine personal image,” says the letter issued by the minister’s private secretary, which has been seen by HT.

The letter also asks senior officials of the education department to refrain from projecting “Robinhood” image in the media through YouTube channels, social media, WhatsApp groups and portals, which “seem to have easy access to all the departmental decisions, confidential letters and meetings”.

“The education minister feels that for the last few days, the department is making news more for negative reasons in the media. The letters from the department seem to reach the media before reaching the minister. Instead of education, the news mostly relate to department’s focus on peripheral issues like salary cut, suspension, dress code, tightening the screws etc. to give an impression of creating fear. In public administration, the political leadership gets the credit for any work, while the officials work in anonymity. The minister takes responsibility of the department work done by public servants.This requires public servants to be unbiased, neutral and anonymous in discharge of their duty. A system needs to evolved for this,” says the letter.

The letter says that the department would have no hesitation in dissemination of important information concerning the masses in accordance with the government’s stated policy, but leaking confidential and negative information is violation of the provisions laid down in the Bihar government servant conduct rules, 1976 and the procedure made for sharing news through information and public relations department. “The minister is extremely unhappy with the goings on,” says the letter.

Incidentally, on Tuesday, a delegation of the federation of university teachers association of Bihar (FUTAB) met the Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, who is also the Chancellor of universities, and submitted a memorandum questioning the move of the education department to seek attendance report from all the colleges and universities on a daily basis.

Maintaining that it was against the spirit of autonomy of universities, FUTAB working president KB Sinha and general secretary Sanjay Kumar said that a similar move had been initiated in 2009 and later withdrawn in 2010 after the Chancellor office took exception to it and directed the universities to take directions only from it in academic and administrative matters, as per the provisions laid down in the Acts governing the universities. They also presented the copies of the two orders to the Chancellor with the memorandum.