Kairon, Thapar and PAU

Some events remain etched in one's memory. Among such events were my interactions with a distinguished ICS officer, the late P.N.Thapar, who was appointed PAU's first Vice-Chancellor (1962-1967) by Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon. While still in its infancy, PAU lost some of its scientists. As The Tribune's correspondent at Ludhiana, I filed a story, which the paper front-paged under the headline “Exodus of scientists from PAU”. On his next visit to the university, Thapar invited me for a chat in PAU’s Sutton Guest House which served as his camp office.

It was late in the evening. When I entered the drawing room, I found a Johnnie Walker bottle on a table with Thapar sitting on a nearby sofa. He offered me a drink. I told him that I was a teetotaller. Smilingly, he asked: “Are you afraid of your wife?” Without waiting for my answer, he ordered a cup of tea for me.

While explaining the reasons behind the exodus of scientists, he pointed out that they had failed to come up to the standards he had laid down for performance and research work.

Our first meeting established a close rapport between us. Thereafter, on the last day of his visits to the university, he would call me for a chat, which revealed different facets of his personality.

In this era of a politicised bureaucracy, not many bureaucrats would refuse to act on the whims of politicians or serve their vested political interests. The bureaucrats would rather devise ways to see that the state's interests were not sacrificed to serve politicians' vested interests. Prominent among such individuals was Thapar. He narrated to me two instances that had enabled him to overcome hurdles in the way of ensuring sound infrastructure on the PAU campuses at Ludhiana and Hisar. The latter was rechristened as Haryana Agriculture University after the birth of Haryana.

PAU then, as now, faced a shortage of funds. The then Punjab Finance Minister, Kapur Singh, dilly-dallied in releasing funds as he did not want investments to be made in Punjab's southern arid areas (now a part of Haryana). The shortage of finance was creating problems in establishing PAU's Hisar campus. Thapar was determined to set up a full-fledged campus at Hisar. Even the payment of employees' salaries was delayed. Thapar wanted me to highlight the problem in The Tribune. He, however, wanted the news to be published after a couple of days of his return to Chandigarh. After the news was prominently featured in The Tribune a few days later, it did not take long for the state's Finance Department to start releasing funds for the university!

The second incident of how fund shortage for the expansion of PAU was overcome took place when Thapar told the Chief Minister that the university urgently needed an additional amount of Rs 2 crore. A Cabinet meeting was scheduled to be held to discuss cuts in departments' plans. Kairon told Thapar that at the Cabinet meeting he should not utter a word about the university's fund requirements! 

When the Cabinet discussed the issue, every minister resisted cuts in his department's plan. Even after prolonged discussions, no decision could be taken. Kairon then left the meeting, asking the ministers to mutually decide the quantum of cuts they would accept in their respective plans. After they reached a decision, they should call him back to the meeting.

As the squabbling ministers failed to come to a decision, they requested Kairon to come back and decide the issue. To start with, Kairon took up the case of PAU's fund requirement. He told Thapar, who was sitting in the row behind the ministers: “Look Thapar you cannot be given Rs 5 crore for the university. If you want the money, you will have to make do with Rs 2 crore”. 

As instructed by Kairon, Thapar kept mum. Kairon then started imposing sizeable cuts in other ministers’ departmental plans. Under the impression that the Chief Minister had drastically cut his pet project's fund requirements, the ministers meekly accepted whatever cuts Kairon proposed!