KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally dedicated the second stage of Baglihar to the state. He spoke for nearly 10 minutes, almost reiterating what he said in Srinagar. But he did not formally threw open a training centre that was waiting for last many months for a VIP inauguration and finally kept in the PM’s basket. And that is not an uninteresting story.
State-run Power Development Corporation (SPDC) converted one of its housing colonies at Baglihar village into a skill training centre where the corporation will train the human resource for its personnel to be deployed in new projects. In the last few months, the SPDC worked overtime to get this Power Management and Training Institute ready for inauguration. But that did not happen.
The institute was part of the budget proposals for the fiscal 2015-16. “Human resources management in the power sector is a formidable bottleneck. Power sector utilities and the Department face skill scarcity at different levels,” Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu said in his budget. “For undertaking a focused skill development programmes for youth to contribute in the development of power sector and also for retraining the departmental personnel of different categories, the Government proposes setting up of a dedicated institution under the name, Chenab Power Management and Training Institute.” Drabu said the government will provide the start-up funds.
Within a few weeks after the announcement, the proposal was cleared by the cabinet and the work on the Institute started.
Then, the Power Minister Dr Nirmal Singh somehow found the Institute should not be named after the Chenab. He suggested that the Institute should be named after Amar Baghat, a Congressman from the belt who died while protesting some three decades back. He mooted the idea. But the governance structure reacted. Eventually the file was sent to the GAD that adversely reacted saying since the name has been cleared by the assembly and later by the cabinet, its name cannot be changed at official level. Instead, they suggested the name-change should follow the same track.
As Dr Singh was busy fighting the system to get the Institute name changed, somehow BJP MLA Bali Baghat got the whiff of it. As he got the details, he read a conspiracy in it. Bali Baghat hails from Kishtwar but was elected from Raipur Domana. He is also from SC community and thinks that Dr Singh was creating a competitor for him posthumously.
Baghat finally took the battle to Delhi. As the Sanagh Parivaar started listening to the two sides for a small institute, they advised Prime Minister not to inaugurate the institute.
While Modi spent nearly 90 minutes in Baglihar, he skipped touching the institute idea. The state government had already been intimated that Modi is not touching the institute. Result: resources spent to create an asset but still not utilized.
