Hospital pic goes viral, IAS officer caught on the wrong foot
Chhattisgarh bureaucrat Jagdish Sonkar visited a government hospital and allegedly acted arrogantly.
A young IAS officer in Chhattisgarh faced social media abuse on Wednesday after a photograph showed him standing and talking to a sick child’s mother with his left foot resting on the steel rail of a hospital bed.
The incident happened when Dr Jagdish Sonkar, the 2013-batch IAS officer who has a medical degree, visited a government hospital for a routine inspection and interacted with mothers of malnourished children being treated there.
He is the sub-divisional magistrate of Ramanujganj in Balrampur district.
Sonkar told Hindustan Times that he went to the hospital with a good intention and examined some patients as well. “My action was unintentional and avoidable,” he said.
He showed no remorse even after social media panned him for his uncivil manners, which amounted to showing disrespect to people.
For his “arrogant and insolent act”, livid netizens rechristened the IAS as “India’s Arrogant Service”.
Twitter user Aniket Devdhar posted: “The term ‘public servant’ has lost its meaning long ago.” Fellow tweeple Kanchan Gupta shared the photo and wrote: “Meet Chhattisgarh IAS officer Dr Jagdish Sonkar. He has a MBBS degree. He clearly knows his place in this country.”
When chief minister Raman Singh came to know of the officer’s insulting gesture, he said he will instruct the chief secretary to teach him manners.
“He needs to learn. There are codes of conduct for IAS/IPS and other officers to be followed in the right earnest.”