Haryana: Miffed, Anil Vij 'not' clearing files of Health Department

Geetanjali Gayatri

Chandigarh, October 27

Upset over the “interference” of a senior officer from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij, under “protest”, has been abstaining from clearing “routine files” of the department for the past three weeks.

Sources close to him maintained that the minister had not signed any papers pertaining to the Health Department and had escalated his grievance to the party top brass. Further, he is learnt to be redirecting any files being sent to him to the CMO for clearance.

The sources said trouble started when a senior officer of the CMO took a review meeting of the Health Department in the first week of October. The minister took exception to an officer reviewing the working of his department in his absence, especially since the latter did not hold the charge of the department in the CMO. During the meeting, the officer was critical of the functioning of the department, which did not go down well with Vij.

While the minister is learnt to have approached the party to air his grievances and conveyed his “displeasure over the interference” to the party top brass at the Centre, sources in the CMO claimed that there was “no discord” and some files in the past one month had been approved by Vij. They added that the CM, worried about languishing projects in all departments, had asked the officers in the CMO to hold review meetings and speed up pending works.

“The review meeting, and those of other departments, were held on the directions of the CM. As far as distribution of work is concerned, this is an internal matter of the CMO. There are no watertight compartments and officers in the CMO clear files and hold review meetings even of departments not allocated to them. The working of one department is reviewed on a weekly basis,” an officer explained.