[Reader-list] Most revered Communist leader in the country and Asia

[hpp at vsnl.com]

All pay & no work at KMDA

KOLKATA, Oct. 5. — It was a ‘‘paid holiday’’, as it were, in the offices of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) today. The reason: a function where the nonagenarian Marxist leader, Mr Jyoti Basu, was felicitated. 

And this at a time when Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is desperately trying to woo investors and has pledged to improve the work culture in government offices. 

The function was organised by the Left-affiliated KMDA Employees’ Union at Unnayan Bhavan, KMDA’s headquarters in Salt Lake, to mark 30 years of the agency. 

Those working in the KMDA’s offices in Barrackpore, Halisahar, Bansberia and Rishra came to participate in the function. Union leaders said they decided to felicitate Mr Basu as he was the former chairman of the KMDA and the most revered Communist leader in the country and Asia (sic). 

They refused to comment when asked whether, by organising the function during working hours, they were not flouting the chief minister’s ‘‘do-it-now’’ mantra. 

Senior KMDA officials, who preferred anonymity, said that there had been practically no work at the KMDA headquarters for the past two days as the employees were busy making preparations for the function. They wondered why wasn’t it organised either on a holiday or after office hours. 

As it is, the KMDA has not been keeping good health. Some of the employees said in private that things had gone from bad to worse. Due to dearth of funds, joint sector projects are being taken up where private agencies call the shots. The KMDA engineers play the role of mere supervisors.
 
from: Statesman News Service