LIFE survey: Dispute during cabinet meeting, Chief Minister intervenes, file kept aside

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The cabinet meeting on Wednesday witnessed a dispute among ministers in connection with the proposal to assign staff of the Agriculture Department and teachers for the LIFE survey. Education Minister V Sivankutty and Agriculture Minister P Prasad strongly opposed Local Government Minister MV Govindan's proposal. With this, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that a decision can be taken later. The file was then kept aside.

Two weeks ago, the cabinet had tasked the Chief Secretary with preparing a solution formula. According to the Chief Secretary's report, District Collectors can be directed to utilise the staff of various departments for the works of the local bodies after holding talks with the district authorities of respective departments. The report also stated that a general guideline should be prepared for this. The report was presented at the cabinet meeting held online yesterday. Minister V Sivankutty said that the suggestions of the respective departmental secretaries should also be considered and the deployment of officers should be done keeping in view the workload and congestion in the departments. Minister P Prasad supported this.

According to P Prasad, agriculture officers were assigned for the LIFE survey at a time when the Agriculture Department was working hard to resolve applications seeking compensation for damage to the agricultural sector, including the damages caused due to the 2018 floods. The situation became so bad that all the three assistants at a Krishi Bhavan were assigned for survey duty. In Palakkad, only the employees of agriculture department were assigned for survey duty. The minister also alleged that rules were violated by suspending the employees of the agriculture department in Aryanad for not appearing for the survey duty.

With this, Minister Govindan came up with dissent. The minister argued that he could not agree with the suggestion that permission should be sought from all departmental secretaries for the redeployment of employees. Following the decentralization, the services of 13 departments were handed over to the local bodies. Yet, local bodies have not been able to make use of the services of all employees. He alleged that the new suggestion put forward by the ministers intends to reduce the powers of the Local Government Department again. He further pointed out that the LIFE survey was about 65 per cent complete and that the rest of the work should be done soon. The Chief Minister intervened when the ministers got involved in a dispute.

One and a half months since the survey came to halt
It has been a month and a half since the survey to find the beneficiaries for the LIFE scheme came to a halt due to a dispute between the departments. The Agriculture Department is of the view that it is impractical to provide employees en masse for the survey. Teachers' organizations have pointed out that as per Central Right to Education Act, it was illegal to assign teachers to other jobs. This forced minister Sivankutty to disagree with the instructions of the local self-government department.