Chandigarh, February 17; ‘Sangat Darshan’ programmes being under taken by the Chief Minister S.Parkash Singh Badal, almost every day is nothing but a drama of absurd. It is a sheer wastage of state funds and misuse of government machinery for unproductive exercise. Such political gimmicks would not pay when the whole system of governance stands completely collapsed and failed miserably to deliver to the aspiration of the people. Frequency of visits of the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister on relatively less important occasions, to the various districts has completely jeopardised the functioning of the District administrations and normal police working has suffered immensely. Immodestly, it has become a routine fashion that the entire police force of the district keeps standing in the attendance of the father and the son duo and other VIP members of the Badal family leaving rest of the citizens of the districts to their destiny. Senior police officers don’t even take telephone calls of the citizens when they are in distress and if you call at their office or official residence the invariable stock reply you get ‘That the Officer is on VVIP duty or Officer is in a meeting or the officer is in the field, and if you ask, which field he is in? Ironically his office does not know’. Such are the besmirch state of affairs in police department whether its state head quarter or district head quarter, this kind of decay in public responsibility is all pervasive and the officer down the chain of command have no time for the public audience. Normal and routine policing has become a history and the alarmingly rising crime graph in Punjab, is no body’s worry.
Doling out largesse without any rhyme and reason that too in the absence of mechanism of planning and monitoring, is nothing but sheer wastage and loot of the state exchequer, particularly at a time when Punjab is suffering severe fiscal downturn and is under the unprecedented debt. Jago Punjab movement, strongly condemn this kind of wasteful exercise and calls for its immediate halt, leaving the district administration free and independent to attend to their offices and public grievances, they be allowed to use their time, energies and capability for more productive and fruitful work in the larger public interest.