Gautam Sanyal is Mamata’s Pulok; shows how a CSS officer can upset IAS power

Gautam Sanyal, a Central secretariat service officer, is the new poster boy of India’s babudom. Till a few months ago, he was the all-powerful OSD to Union railway minister Mamata Banerjee. But after Ms Banerjee became chief minister of West Bengal, Sanyal too took a flight to Kolkata and became the most important officer in Bengal’s power corridors giving heartburns to many IAS officers. The IAS babus could not even believe that a CSS officer at the rank of a joint secretary was actually dominating the IAS. There were reports that the state chief secretary was reluctant to appoint him as principal secretary to CM as he was not so high in the seniority list.

According to reports, Sanyal is now given one year’s extension after his retirement making him probably the first retired bureaucrat to head the chief minister’s office in Kolkata. There were rumours that Sanjay Mitra, former PMO official would move to chief minister’s office as secretary to CM after Sanyal’s retirement. But that did not happen. Sanyal became Mamata’s close confidante when she was the railway minister in during the NDA government. He continued to enjoy her trusts in UPA-II as well. In Rail Bhawan, Sanyal was the bullet train to reach Mamata immediately.

In fact, Gautam Sanyal to Mamata is what Pulok Chatterji is to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Chatterji, for example, is so close to Sonia Gandhi that he was recalled mid-way from his Washington DC posting in World Bank to take over as principal secretary to PM after it was realized that a man close to 10 Janpath should anchor the PMO and bridge the gap between the government and the Congress party. Sanyal is undoubtedly Mamata’s Pulok.

Those who became secretary to West Bengal chief minister in the past included veteran bureaucrats like Bhaskar Ghose (later become information and broadcasting secretary), Subir Dutta (later became Union defence secretary) and SN Menon (became Union commerce secretary).

Mamata announces a slew of welfare measures for railway employees; should civil servants expect sops from Mukherjee on Monday?

THE 1.4 million-strong railway brigade across the country has reasons to cheer after railway minister Mamata Banerjee announced a number of sops to railway employees in her Rail Budget presented in Lok Sabha on Friday. Before coming to what finance minister Pranab Mukherjee can do for government employees including officials during the General Budget to be presented on Monday, let’s list some of welfare measures announced by the railway minister for railway employees. a) The contribution of Staff Benefit Fund would be enhanced to Rs 350 per railway employee by one year. According to the announcement in Rail Budget, out of this contribution, a sum of Rs 100 per employee will be used exclusively for activities relating to women empowerment. This would also include the provision for vocational and occupational skill development training for physically and mentally challenged wards of railway employees, especially the girl child and higher education for girls. b) Ms Banerjee also announced the proposal to construct 6560 staff quarters during the year 2009-10. A thrust would be given under the Corporate Welfare Plan for improvement of staff quarters and colonies. The Budget also proposes to set up indoor stadia in major railway divisions and zones to promote sports and cultural activities amongst the railway employees. Scholarship for higher education of girl children of Group D staff will be launched. Seven nursing colleges on railway land in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai (Kalyan), Chennai, Secunderabad, Lucknow and Jabalpur will be opened on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The Budget also envisages to establish medical colleges attached to existing railway hospitals through PPP mode to give higher education facilities to the wards of railway employees. The locations where such colleges are planned include: Chennai, Hyderabad, Bilaspur, Lucknow, Barasat, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jodhpur, Gardenreach, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, B.R. Singh Hospital, Bhopal, Jammu and Trivandrum. It was also announced that the General Managers would be empowered to sanction cases upto Rs 4 lakh for special medical treatment of railway persons. The Budget also provides for construction of dormitories for ladies and gents who accompany the patients at 16 hospitals having 150 beds and above. Burn Units will be provided at major railway hospitals of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Secunderabad, Bangalore and B R Singh Hospital, Kolkata.

Mukherjee on Monday: What Babus should expect from General Budget? No major initiative is expected to be announced in the Budget which will have a direct impact on civil servants except finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s direct tax sops would make bureaucrats happy as well. The possible raising of the income tax slabs or restoration of standard deduction would help the bureaucrats as well to save some hard cash.