New Delhi: The newly formed government of India has now asked the vice-chairman and members of the National Disaster Management Authority and chairpersons and members of various government commissions like National Commission for Women and the SC/ST Commission to put in their papers.
The vice-chairman of NDMA Shashidhar Reddy and five out of the eight NDMA members tendered their resignations on Thursday. Home secretary Anil Goswami had called up all of them on Wednesday afternoon, asking them to resign from their posts.
NDMA members held a marathon meeting later to debate the issue, with some members insisting they should not resign without express instructions from the President, but relented on Thursday. Those who have sent in their resignations are former CISF director-general KM Singh, former civil aviation secretary KN Shrivastava, ex-Maj Gen JK Bansal, former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre B Bhattacharjee and former CBI Special Director K Saleem Ali.
The government has also sounded out NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma, currently abroad, and SC/ST commission chairman RL Punia to resign. However, there was no official confirmation.
The Prime Minister is the chairman of NDMA. Many of the eight members at NDMA had completed their tenure in 2010 but were reappointed for five years by the UPA government.
A senior home ministry official said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is utterly unhappy with the state of affairs at NDMA… He wants fresh blood inducted in the organisation with people who have strong experience in disaster management. This will happen soon.”
The post of an NDMA member has minister of state (MoS) rank. Former vice-chairman M Shashidhar Reddy was elevated to the post (equivalent to a Cabinet minister) in 2012 — he has been with NDMA since its inception in 2005 and was re-appointed in NDMA after his fiveyear tenure ended in 2010.
Bureau Report
Leave a Reply