Stung by accusations of being “anti-north-Karnataka”, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy may have promised to shift certain offices, such as the Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigam, the special purpose vehicle financing irrigation projects on the river Krishna; the Upalokayukta; and three of the State Information Commissioners, to Belagavi. However, there has been very little action on the ground.
Neither the Regional Commissioner nor the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) have got any information, either oral or written, on the shifting of the offices to Belagavi. A source in the office of the Additional Director-General of Police, Lokayukta, also said there was no communication from the government on the issue.
“Shifting of the Upalokayukta is not a simple process to be achieved with a Government Order. It has to be done after consultation with several departments, and the consent of the higher judiciary. The Upalokayukta is a retired judge of the High Court. The office includes several senior officers, including one IGP rank officer. This takes several months, if not years, to materialise. That is, if the State government is serious about it in the first place,” said a senior IPS officer.
There have been no signs of shifting of the Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigam either. “There is neither any letter nor any discussion on the topic yet. We are besieged with the issue of promotions and transfer of engineers in the light of the Supreme Court judgment on reservation rosters, and the recent Union government order regarding the issue,” said a secretary-rank officer in the Irrigation Department.
However, some progress has been made towards appointment of Information Commissioners. “There has been some discussion on the subject, though there is no written communication from the State government to the office of the Chief Information Commissioner,” said a senior officer in the Commissionerate. “The government is collecting feedback from Nagpur, in Maharashtra, that houses such information commissioners. This may come through here too, though we cannot be sure when,” the officer said.
Unused Suvarna Soudha
Meanwhile, the Suvarna Soudha of Belagavi, which has held seven legislature sessions since 2011, is effectively occupied only for 10 to 15 days each year.
The Public Works Department officials, tasked with the upkeep of the structure, say they have spent around ₹4 crore on its maintenance, including cleaning, housekeeping, and minor repairs in eight years. This is apart from the round-the-clock security cost incurred by the Police Department. The cost of conducting the sessions has been estimated to average around ₹30 crore a year.
Role of leaders and bureaucrats
“Reluctance of Ministers to decentralise power and the mindset of senior IAS officers” are cited as major reasons behind the tardiness in making the move.
“They have centralised all powers of transfers and postings. If the political class continues to cling on to power, we can expect little progress on decentralisation,” said a former additional chief secretary. “They want the head of their departments to stay in Bengaluru as they want to summon them to their offices all the time,” he added.
Blaming bureaucracy equally, a senior IAS officer, who has served in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms in the past, said officers “find a way to escape postings” to north Karnataka. He recalled how difficult it is to find competent officers for the Hyderabad Karnataka Regional Development Board, the Directorate of Urban Transport in Hubballi, and the Electric Supply Companies in Hubballi and Kalaburagi.
In fits and starts
Successive governments had shifted six State-level offices to north Karnataka districts. But, they were all reverted, along with officers and staff, to Bengaluru within one or two years, say people in the know of these developments.
A retired bureaucrat recalls that the first attempt to shift offices to Belagavi was made by former Chief Minister D. Devaraj Urs in 1978. “He ordered shifting of Irrigation, Education, and Textile departments to the divisional headquarter town. But, the experiment failed as only a few officers joined and some went on leave after reporting,” the officer said. The Urs government fell within a year, and the situation went back to square one.
Nine offices
In 2000, former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, in his budget speech, identified nine offices, including some State-run corporations to be shifted to Bombay Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka towns. “But, he faced a lot of opposition from officers and chairmen of the corporations, who were political appointees,” a senior officer said. Starting the Education Commissionerates in Dharwad and Kalaburagi, initiated by Mr. Krishna and implemented during the time of the late Dharam Singh, has been the rare successes.
Interestingly, it was the present Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy who spoke of developing Belagavi as a second capital in 2006. He mooted the construction of the State legislature building to house the winter session, later christened Suvarna Soudha. He also spoke of shifting some secretary-level offices to Belagavi.
Former Sugar Minister A. Krishnappa promised to move the sugar directorate to Belagavi, reasoning that the officers should work from the district that had the largest number of sugar factories. “However, that proved to be a very painful experience,” recalls BJP MLC Mahantesh Kavatagimath. “For nearly half a year, no senior officer came to Belagavi. Even those who came successfully lobbied with the government and shifted the office back to Bengaluru,” he said.
Experiment fails
The experiment of shifting Karnataka Niravari Nigam office to Dharwad that began a few years ago also failed to take off, with many bureaucratic manoeuvres. “What is left in Dharwad now is just a pale remnant of the corporation,” recalls a former Irrigation Department Secretary.
Former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa had also reiterated plans of making Belagavi the second capital. In 2010, he said a panel would be constituted to decide modalities of the transfer.
But, the committee was not constituted. During the protest in Belagavi recently, he urged the government to post an officer of the rank of Additional Chief Secretary here. When presspersons asked him why he did not do that when he was the Chief Minister, he said he had tried other methods to develop the region.
