Sabyasachi
Bandopadhyay
INDIAN
EXPRESS, Posted online: Thu Oct 20 2011, 02:37 hrs
Kolkata: The West Bengal
government has ordered a retest for a batch of 156 engine drivers of the Fire
Service department who got their jobs about eight months ago after going
through all necessary tests.
The
order was issued by Indevar Pandey, Principal Secretary, Fire department, some
time back after Director of Fire Services Gopal Bhattacharya wrote to the
government that 27 of the 156 drivers, who were recruited during the fag end of
Left Front rule, were not fit to drive fire engines and were recruited without
proper tests.
Since
the 27 could not be singled out, the fire department called all the 156 for a
retest of their driving skills.
“The
tests are going on. I will not say anything more on this,” Bhattacharya told
The Indian Express.
The
move, however, has not gone down well with a section of officials believing
that it could lead to complications.
“If
any of the drivers goes to court, the government would be in a fix as they were
taken in after all the tests, including medical. Apart from that they are in
service and have been receiving salary for the past eight months. How can you
take a retest now? What will you do if any of them disqualifies,” asked one
official.
In
another mysterious development, the complaint sent by Bhattacharya to the Secretary
was on Wednesday found missing from the file.
“This
must have been an insider job, somebody is trying to shield the man or group of
men who were responsible for those appointments during the Left Front
government,” said one official.
The
Fire Department is facing a leadership crisis as Pandey, who handles two other
departments as well - Home (Personnel) and Disaster Management — hardly finds
any time it.
“He
never sits in his office in the Fire Department. Many projects and plans have
fallen. The department is in doldrums,’’ an official alleged.
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