Gunupur BDO, Sri. Gandaram Khamari, OAS, had to face verbal abuse from the Panchayat Samati Chairman and Sarpnch Sagada GP (whose role in misappropriation of 13 lakh of NREGS funds was exposed in a recent inquiry by Gandaram Khamari) for apparently no fault from his side. Sri. Khamari was instrumental in bringing to light the misappropriation of more than Rs. 13 Lakhs in one GP of Sagada alone, a few months back. However, surprisingly, he was immediately transferred from Gunupur. The district administration had not relieved him, firstly because no one was even posted in his place and secondly, since it was the time of the year when chances of cholera epidemic occurring in the district is very high, the Collector Rayagada had decided to retain him till the end of September.
However there was tremendous pressure from local PRI members to relieve him earlier. There were complaints against him, that he is delaying NREGS payments to the job card holders, which were prima facie found not to be true.
Sri. Khamari had worked in the most naxal affected district of Malkangiri and had done a commendable job as BDO Mathili. He holds a reputation of being a no nonsense officer, a quality which more often than not, lands a government servant, particularly field level functionaries like BDOs into problem.
A mob of about 500 people led by Gunupur block chairman and Sagada Sarpanch barged in the office chamber of Sri. Khamari and abused him. They are told to have said that since the district administration had not taken appropriate action against the BDO, they will take the law in their own hands. Along with BDO, other staff of the block office were threatened and intimidated.
What comes as a surprise is that the district administration had made it very clear that Sri. Khamari will be relived on the last working day of September 2011. The whole act of intimidating the BDO was thus highly uncalled for, since for not being relieved, the salary of the BDO was stopped by the government. It is learnt that the only purpose behind this act was to terrorise the block staff into submission and to ensure that the future incumbent is also kept in the same environment.
Such type of incidents generally go unnoticed and the incidents of state civil services officer being humiliated, manhandled or even beaten up doesn't raise any eyebrow in any section of the society. Not even those of messiahs of anti corruption movements or of the organisations who constantly cry out about lack of development. Worst it is taken as a way of life. That is why most of the state service officers do not seem to be keen to be posted as BDOs.
With relief of BDO Gunupur, the total vacancy of BDOs in the district has become 6. The posts of BDOs of Kashipur, Bissamcuttak, Chandrapur, Padampur, Gudari, along with Gunupur have fallen vacant and are manned by either ABDOs or Tahsildars in additional charge. Developmental administration is bound to take serious back being this way !
