The Cabinet in a democratic Governmental structure is the real source of power. Its word is final as far as the administration is concerned and can be challenged only by the court of law. In other words the Cabinet is the chief executive body. Now imagine if the orders of the Cabinet are trivialized by any subsidiary of the Government, what will be the state of affairs in such a state. Isn’t it horrible to imagine something like that happening? And it is happening in our State. We have a glaring example that casts aspersions on those who are in the driver’s seat in administrative structure.
In May 2012, the State Cabinet accorded sanctions to the establishment of Jammu and Kashmir State Road Development Corporation. The objective was to give a thrust to multifaceted growth in transport infrastructure especially to promote surface infrastructure by taking up road works and to improve road network by taking up construction, widening and strengthening of major roads and allied structures. The justification of raising the organization was that ours is a hilly state and there are grave problems of road connectivity in all the three regions. Leaving aside recurring road accidents on our hilly tracks resulting in numerous fatalities, the question of widening and expanding roads to make them four-laned, safety of the road and future planning, raising or removing of structures by the road side, etc. necessitated establishment of the J&K State Road Development Corporation. The aim was to give multifaceted thrust to the development of transport infrastructure. Another objective was to ensure that this body takes up projects on Build-Own-Transfer (BOT), Build-Own-Operate and Transfer (BOOT), Build-Own-Lease and Transfer (BOLT) basis under Public Private Partnerships as well as major projects entrusted by the State and Central Governments. Actually the proposal of establishment of State Road Development Corporation was mooted by the Roads and Buildings Department in consultation with the then Chief Minister, who was also Minister in-charge R&B.
The proposal got much respectability when the Cabinet decided that the Chief Minister would be the Chairman of Board of Directors, Minister In-charge R&B Senior Vice-Chairman, Chief Secretary Vice-Chairman and Administrative Secretaries of Finance, Planning, Forest, Housing and Urban Development would be its Directors. However, despite such a high profile of the organization, it has belied the expectations of the people.
Three years have passed by and no action is taken on this vital Cabinet decision. Incidentally, establishment of the Corporation did not entail large budgeting and 1 crore rupees was already sanctioned for it as share capital. The project did not ask for fresh recruitments and posts. Yet notwithstanding this situation nothing has been done to implement the Cabinet decision. We understand that the vision was that State Road Development Policy would be laid for a period of 20 years by constituting a Task Force and establish GIS based Road Information Management System. This explains the rationale of the Cabinet behind this decision. How sad that these decisions of vital importance to the people are left to collect dust and still nobody even cares to ask why the Cabinet decisions are trivialized.
Undoubtedly, this style of functioning at the higher level of administration is frustrating. It discourages and disappoints all stakeholders and the general public. Trivializing the Cabinet decision sends very negative message to all administrative departments. It is a case of absence of accountability and that is the bane of our entire administrative system. Primarily it is the job and responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary and the GAD to pursue the follow up action. We find no reason for the administration to treat a Cabinet decision so cursorily. We, therefore hope that such irresponsible approach to administrative affairs will not be repeated by the concerned officials.
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