Mumbai : Food and Supplies minister Girish Bapat blamed the Principle Secretary of his department, Deepak Kapoor, for neglecting warnings by the Central government of possible rise in cost of pulses, which resulted in a major hike in prices.
Bapat dashed a letter to Kapoor on November 17, and demanded explanation on the issue. Bapat also questioned Kapoor over the failure of controlling prices of tur dal, despite raids being conducted at several places. Bapat also raised questions over the department’s action of not penalising traders who stored dal in their godowns.
Bapat has sought a report from Kapoor within seven days on the future action plan to avoid such crisis.
According to the letter, the Centre had warned the state in June about possible price rise of pulses, but till October-end, no action was taken. The Centre asked the state to implement storage limits before July 31. A reminder was sent on August 17.
On October 9, the Centre wrote to Kapoor expressing concern over the price rise and reiterated to implement storage limit.
This is not the first instance of disagreement between ministers and officers. It all surfaced some days ago, when Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself accused the bureaucracy of not cooperating. Following this, the chief secretary had to call a meeting of all senior bureaucrats to discuss the issue, said sources.
Two months ago, state finance minister Sudhir Munguntiwar had an altercation with the finance secretary. Last week, in a meeting to discuss water planning of Godavari river, Fadnavis had to warn secretaries of finance, planning and water resources to improve their performance.
Last month, power minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule faced an embarrassing situation when he had to announce that the decision taken by his department of waiving off the electricity bill of a steel company in Raigad was taken by mistake.
