Chandigarh: To Krishan Kumar, the main water sources secretary in Punjab, getting within the highlight is nothing new. Now, 1997 Batch IAS officers are within the eyes of the storm amid the continuing slugfest between the opposition and the Baghwantman authorities for what brought on the state’s devastating flood.
The opposition has referred to as for Kumar to maneuver instantly. Act on time to arrange for the monsoon’s ferociousness. Nevertheless, the Aam Aadmi Get together (AAP) authorities stands behind Kumar and says it has “do their greatest” to arrange for the flood.
Kumar, who served on the Prime Minister’s Workplace (PMO) from 2011 to 2015, has a popularity for being an uncompromising, disciplined supervisor recognized for main the state’s schooling reforms when he was Schooling Secretary from 2017 to 2022.
He was additionally on the forefront of implementing CM Man’s flagship challenge, which might restore non-functional river channels on the tail finish of the canal to enhance irrigation.
“This is similar Krishan Kumar who left the grasp’s diploma (trainer) in all authorities colleges in Punjab to the job. He was your (Captain Amarinder-led Congress) authorities secretary,” Mann advised Punjab Parliament on Friday. “Do not break the hearts of working officers.”
Mann had responded to the chief of opposition Paltap Singh Bajiwa. He launched a pointy assault on Kumar and mentioned he was answerable for calling it a “synthetic flood” in Punjab.
“He (Krishan Kumar) has all the time been inflicting hassle. He’s recognized to be a plundering port. He’ll solely deliver you dangerous names. He must be transferred,” Bajiwa mentioned.
Irrigation Water Sources Minister Barinder Goyal defended Kumar throughout a particular session of Vidhan Sabha on Friday, when he started discussing flooding and rehabilitation.
“You’re demanding that he resign by telling a lie,” Goyal advised the opposition. “If something, this division below him has labored in three years greater than the division has carried out Congress and Akali authorities for the previous 30 years,” he advised Congress on Monday.
Nevertheless, Bajiwa continued his assault. “Practically 8,000 workers in Krishan Kumar’s division have been charged sheets over the previous few years. No police officer desires to work with him.”
The Print reached Kumar for remark through Name and WhatsApp messages. This report is up to date when and when a response is obtained.
Learn once more: Did the BBMB and IMD warnings that you simply ignored worsen the flood injury? Anatomy of the Punjab Flood
Battle with politicians
Kumar, a stickler of the foundations, is thought for his bureaucratic circles for complicated politicians by refusing to succumb to unreasonable or unlawful calls for.
The primary assault on him, “brought on a flood,” was Sanour’s AAP MLA, Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, final month.
In line with Pathanmajra, Kumar’s division did nothing regardless of a number of requests to wash the river’s waterways.
“Other than this one officer, all the opposite officers are high quality. He thinks he is aware of the whole lot and India was created solely after start.
“He must be moved to a spot the place he can’t be given a job aside from going fishing,” he added.
Two days after him He criticized his personal occasion’s authorities for the flood scenario in Punjab, Pathanmajra was booked in a rape incident three years in the past. he I ran away Whereas being taken to the police after his arrest, Afterwards, MLAs are sending video messages from non-public areas saying they need to launch a insurrection in opposition to AAP’s Delhi management.
Kumar additionally performs a key position within the Punjab water battle with Haryana, doing all his homework for Man to tackle the Bakrabies Administration Board (BBMB) and Haryana.
In Might, Mann led the protest. For BBMB To offer further river water to Haryana from the allocation of water within the Punjab river. The BBMB distributes the river water in response to a pre-determined allocation divided between Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan.
Mann additionally locked the horn together with Haryana Chief Minister Nayabu Singh Saini.
Throughout BBMB conferences with varied stakeholder states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, Kumar was a voice critic of what Punjab calls BBMB prejudice.
Kumar’s Shut Aides advised The Print on April 30 that the stakeholder state voted to launch further water to Haryana from Punjabi allocation on the BBMB assembly, Kumar claimed the Punjabi case for over 5 hours and ultimately left the assembly in Huff after recording a 3-page denial.
Kumar, revealed within the Water Sources Division shortly after the AAP got here to energy in March 2022, was tasked with main a pet challenge to revive river channels that don’t perform on the tail finish of the canal for irrigation.
Mann claims that over 60% of such non-functional channels have been cleared over the previous three years. Subsequently, river water reaches farmlands that relied on tube effectively water for irrigation.
Water Sources Minister Goyal advised Congress on Monday that greater than 75% of such channels will work within the coming months.
Learn once more: How Punjab IAS officers are going through PMO and DOPT warmth in key posts in opposition to flood reduction on the Centre
Academic reform
Kumar is most generally recognized for his duties within the schooling sector. He served as Director of College Schooling (2007-2010) and later as Secretary of Schooling (2017-2022).
Kumar, acknowledged as an overhaul of Punjab’s public faculty schooling system, has launched Padho Punjab, a goal marketing campaign specializing in educating arithmetic and English, bringing palpable adjustments to the standard of major and secondary schooling within the state.
He enforced compelled attendance for varsity lecturers and a whole bunch of dangerous lecturers.
The lecturers’ union continued to strike in opposition to him, and most of his posts to the schooling division had been frequent sights of everlasting darna exterior his workplace door.
He has revamped faculty buildings throughout the state, painted in vivid colours to make them enticing to college students, and remodeled them into sensible colleges with all the tutorial instruments and services that assist authorities colleges compete with non-public colleges.
Nevertheless, Kumar’s claims to stay to guidelines concerning trainer recruitment haven’t been extremely popular amongst him and politicians recognized to be recognized to say no.
Digital Engineers from Mahalshidayanand College (MDU) Rohtak, in his hometown of Haryana, Kumar additionally holds a Masters diploma in Economics. For a brief interval of lower than a 12 months between 2016 and 2017, he was appointed expenditure secretary of the Punjab authorities.
He remained at PMO from 2011 to 2015, then labored for the Indian authorities’s Shopper Affairs, Meals and Public Distribution Bureau. He then returned to the state’s finance division.
Other than his contributions to schooling, Kumar was additionally recognized for creating the pioneering “Nawanshaal mannequin” that suppressed feminine fetishaids when he was a vice-committee member of Nawanshaal from 2006 to 2007.
The progressive marketing campaign included reporting all being pregnant well being departments within the state and fixed surveillance till start.
After the profitable experiment at Nawanshaal, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh ordered the mannequin to be replicated statewide.
In 2007, the mannequin was acknowledged by the Federal Division of Well being as yet another efficient solution to management fertilizer in girls, and was inspired to review and replicate states throughout the nation.
(adidivity by Saguyu Kaity)
Learn once more: Punjab Reduction Fund Catastrophe: ‘Rs 12,000 Cr Unspent’ SDRF Fund, AAP-BJP SlugFest & Self Purpose by Mann Govt
