Jammu, January 21: The Earth News has always stood for truth and goes to any extent to ink the truth and also find out the possible solutions so that the outcome can be hotly debated to benefit the society at large.
In this regard Earth News has been raising many important public issues through its columns under various tag lines to keep public abreast of the latest developments and also provide suggestions to the politicians and administrators from public point of view for a smooth and people oriented administration and government.
In our series Earth News today starts yet another series under the tag line Finding Solutions in which public opinion is also welcome and would be appreciated so that we together can debate the public issues and offer some suggestions to the powers that be in our bid to contribute to the society and try to make our lives a bit smother.
Today we would like to raise the issue of political and administrative accountability that is missing from the society and stress for making it legal so that our elected representatives and administrators are also accountable to the public they serve with legal implications.
If common government employees working in the government sector are held responsible and accountable for their acts during their tenure why can’t the superior officers and politicians who too are basically servants of the public be not held accountable for their deeds and misdeeds during their tenure?
While bureaucrats fall in the purview of the service rules but the fact is that they too run the administration on their whims and fancies and only made accountable only when some scandal breaks out or a major administrative lapse comes in open.
The bureaucrats who enjoy the highest luxuries a government servant can get hardly practice what they preach as they are treated above the law by their junior officers who otherwise could make them to work as per the rules.
Have you come across any IAS or IPS officer being suspended for arriving late in office or going for movie without taking proper leave while any ordinary government functionary is made to go through biometric attendance system, maintaining log book for outside visits and seek leave for visiting a movie theater.
Similarly politicians who are elected by the people to run the government for them hardly work for the benefit of the people and once elected take their party view as supreme.
The politicians work like super lords without any attendance system or public responsibility and if they meet public it is called Janata Durbar reminding us f colonial mindset to satisfy their ego.
Why politicians must not be made to put everything on public domain like how many public sittings they have done, how many hours they give for grievance hearing, how many cases they have resolved and how many promises made in election manifestos have been kept.
The public representatives who take huge salaries and enjoy the best of the world also are the least accountable people in India otherwise how would one find politicians enjoying at home while the state of Jammu and Kashmir is in a perplexed situation waiting for them to take call and govern.
Why shouldn’t they be held responsible for wasting public time and money?
Why not stop their salaries and have a time limit to make up their mind to form the government.
Another way to save the public money and time is to make elections a onetime feature for six or five years and once elected they have to decide whether they want to govern or remain as MLAs only.
Why the state should be in a chaos when we had a Deputy Chief Minister who could have been the care taker chief minister till the next Chief Minister is elected by the legislators? Why put the state in a crisis for the whims and fancies of a few people?
These are some questions which need public debate to find a solution so that people who elect the rulers can also force them to enact such laws that benefit the people and not their representatives.
The debate has just begun. Let’s take it further by not remaining mute spectators to the happenings in the society and later blame it on politicians who incidentally are from within.