summer when the government asked Dr Hasseb A Drabu to put in his papers as Chairman and Managing Director of the J&K Bank, they added to the losses of a society that has been craving for right thinking people for a long time.
He was appointed initially to be economic adviser and later as head of the bank but after five years he was wearing many hats.
A post-graduate in economics from the University of Kashmir, Drabu did his doctorate from JNU. Soon he found his way into various organizations in the finance sector besides serving in the Planning Commission as consultant.
He was member of the tenth finance commission and adviser to the economic advisory council of the Prime Minister in 1991. A frequent writer on Kashmir, he eventually landed in the Business Standard as its national editor. He resigned from the newspaper to take up the new assignment as economic adviser to J&K government and finally becoming chairman of J&K Bank.
His five years in J&K made a big difference about how we think and tackle the issues that confront us in fiscal and developmental matters. Barring merging the power with general budget, the system of the budgeting remains unaltered. It was he who revealed it to J&K that no society taxes its ‘exports’ and finally rolled back the toll tax.
The Asian Development Bank loan that he negotiated and managed after creating the ERA is still the only multilateral loan that J&K has got. The Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan that he drafted continues to be the only central government package that is still being delivered. He negotiated the deal with Norwegian firm for yet-to-take off Sawlakote power project and was the man behind the creation of Chenab Valley Power Projects Corporation.
Drabu had many ideas to push forward when the Azad government fell apart. He resigned as economic adviser but chief minister Omar Abdullah wanted him to continue as the bank chairman. But he could only push the idea of connecting Kishtwar to Kashmir through a tunnel. Somehow it was not opposed as a third party was willing to invest. But there was limited progress and the project is now abandoned.
PDP once announced that Drabu was the author of its self rule document but later withdrew the statement. It, however, did remain as one of his major negatives before the current dispensation. Drabu has never accepted that he authored PDPs political bible.
However, what was more important about Drabu was that he had become a free adviser and almost a public intellectual. Anybody would seek an appointment and get his business plan vetted and professionalized.
Off late, he was the most sought after speaker on non-fiscal issue in the universities across J&K.
Ideally a professional losing a Rs 250 thousand a month job in Srinagar is a loser. But in this case it is the Kashmir society that has lost a guide who knew the ailment and had the prescription, at least for the economic part of it. By the way, he is back in Mumbai where he is giving two days each a week to three Indian majors and paying monthly tax almost equal to what he was earning in J&K, sources close to him said.
