APROPOS the report, `Nandipur power plant failure: what needs to be probed` (Sept 13). There are many similar projects where billions of taxpayers` money has been wasted by the inefficient bureaucracy and bad decisions by the rulers.
The Planning Commission, being the project-sanctioning forum, had never questioned the delay in the project. All this mismanagement and incompetence has cost the nation an exorbitant price on the development funds obtained as loans from financial development institutions on mark-up. Instead of improving the efficiency of the planning division, every new deputy chairman tries to reinvent the wheel.
The appointment of non-professionals, particularly DMG officers, not trained to manage or commission a technical project, is an eye-opener. The staff appointment on the whims of rulers in PIA, steel mills and gas-utility companies is another classic example of appeasement of the rulers by the bureaucracy at the expense of national wealth.
We have the Indian model where af ter joining a ministry, the ICS of ficer retires from the same. Let us change the rules of business and a person being paid from taxpayers` hard-earned money should not be allowed to rule taxpayers and instead behave like a civil servant, It is heartening that the Planning Division is reforming the bureaucracy, but I am afraid our DMG officers would not let it accomplish the task.
