MLA gets SDO suspended for ignoring public grievances

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Panipat, August 12

Sanjay Sharma, Sub-Divisonal Officer (SDO) with the state Public Health Engineering Department, has been suspended on the basis of a complaint by Panipat Urban MLA Rohita Rewri.

The MLA complained about negligence by the SDO to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar yesterday and his suspension order was issued the same day. The MLA said an eye was being kept on six or seven other government officials who had reportedly been harassing the public.

According to sources, residents of the Sethi Chowk area in the city had been suffering water shortage for the last six or seven days. The residents met Sharma, urging him to resolve the issue, but he did not pay heed to their request.

Enraged over his behaviour, the residents approached Rewri and complained against him. The MLA directed the SDO to resolve the grievance, but he did not pay attention to her telephone call.

Instead of trying to resolve the problem, the SDO reportedly switched off his mobile phone. Rewri sent a complaint to the Chief Minister about the SDO’s negligence yesterday morning.

She complained that the SDO had not been paying heed to problems of the public. When contacted over telephone, he was either unavailable or did not try to resolve the problem, she claimed.

Talking to The Tribune, Rewri said complaints against Sharma were regularly being received from the areas concerned about neglecting public grievances.

She said the Chief Minister took serious note of her complaint and the SDO was suspended with immediate effect the same day.

She complained in the morning and his suspension order was received in the afternoon, she added.

According to the suspension order issued by Sanjeev Kaushal, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Engineering Department, the SDO was directed to report at the headquarters in Panchkula with immediate effect.

Rewri said she had warned the SDO a number of times to alter his response to problems of the public, but to no avail. If a government official could behave in this manner with a public representative, how would he behave with the common man, she asked.

“I have prepared a list of six or seven government officials working in Panipat city who have been harassing the public and are not paying attention to resolving problems being faced by them,” asserted the MLA.

She said the suspension of the SDO would be a message for those officials who had been harassing the people and did not pay attention to their grievances.

No government official would be spared for negligence of duty and not resolving problems of the public, the MLA stated. Stringent action would be initiated against such officials, she warned.