Chaos at Sectt as babus ‘lose’ official cars

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 18

Often the people we dismiss as insignificant can adversely affect our work. This is something that the babus of the state learnt the hard way today.

Over 4,000 drivers of the state government went on a two-day strike, demanding better work conditions; removal of anomalies in their pay scales; and refusal to serve the “home and all its inhabitants” of the babu they serve.

Utter chaos was witnessed in the Punjab Secretariat as well as the Mini-Secretariat here this morning as the government officers either took a taxi ride or came driving their personal cars (Finance Commissioner Housing Vishwajeet Khanna, Principal Secretary General Administration KAP Singh) to reach office.

Some officers even pooled cars to reach the office or go for lunch (Additional Chief Secretary Suresh Kumar and Secretary Vivek Pratap); while a few senior bureaucrats were sent taxis by the General Administration Department.

A few, who have a gunman attached to them, had their gunmen driving them around (Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal and Home Secretary Jagpal Sandhu).

But the scene was not as straight and simple as it appears. Very much used to the “privileges of the job”, the officers found it difficult to come to terms with the official car not being there — even for a day.

A senior officer in the Education Department, who had given a lift to another Principal Secretary-rank officer, tried to browbeat the protesting drivers by coercing the former’s driver to drive them to the Mini-Secretariat in the morning.

While the senior officer, who sits in the Mini-Secretariat and was recognised by the protesting drivers, just walked into the building when he saw the protesters trying to stop the car and fighting with the driver for defying the strike call by the Punjab Government Drivers and Technical Employees Union, the junior decided to wield his authority on the drivers.

A minor scuffle and a heated exchange of words ensued with the protesters walking away with his car keys and raising slogans against him and the state government.

Throughout the day, the drivers kept a tab all over the city and across Punjab to ensure that none of their members defied the strike call. An officer in Pungrain, director finance MS Sarang, was left in the lurch literally as the protesting drivers waylaid his official car near Leisure Valley, locked the car and walked away with the car keys.

Left with no option, he had to call for help from home to transport him back to his residence for lunch.

But it was just the IAS officers who bore the brunt of the drivers’ angst with the government. All ministers get the drivers from the Transport Department, and they were not participating in the strike.

Though Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal had yesterday tried to appease them and had called for a meeting with the unions’ leadership on Friday, the latter decided to go ahead with the strike.

The striking drivers are demanding regularisation of services of contractual drivers; removal of anomalies in pay grades; grant of travelling allowance; insurance of all official vehicles so that the drivers don’t have to bear the cost of repair; a proper promotion policy; a proper night accommodation when they travel with officers on official visits; and most importantly, regulation on officers who use them for running errands for their family members.

A woman IAS officer in the rank of special secretary, too, was stopped and her car locked by the protesters at the main secretariat.