UP power minister takes to Twitter against officer; officer transferred

When his complaints against a senior IAS officer to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath did not work, UP’s Power Minister Shrikant Sharma took to Twitter to show his annoyance against the Chairman, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) Arvind Kumar for alleged delays in implementation of power projects.

The tactics worked and the said officer was transferred out of the Power Corporation on Monday night. Agriculture Production Commissioner Alok Sinha was given additional charge of the UPPCL..

This was probably the first time when a senior minister took to social media to show his annoyance against a bureaucrat working under him. “What can he do? The minister had lodged complaints to the Chief Minister a number of times but his pleas were ignored. So, he took to Twitter to air his grievances,” a close confidante of the Minister told this reporter on Tuesday morning.

Sharma was not available for his comments.

In a series of tweets in January the Power Minister had raised questions over just 14 per cent registration in schemes that are aimed to give relief to industrialists, commercial and domestic power users. He also questioned the lack of accountability of MD of different Discom companies and asked why UPPCL Chairman was not taking action against them.

The situation reached a point of no return when on January 25, the minister took to twitter to question why the system of downloading of bills in urban and rural areas were not complete. He also questioned why UPPCL had incurred a loss of over Rs 90,000 Crore.

People close to the power minister said that Sharma had found irregularities in the purchase of smart power meters, lack of transparency in the working of billing agencies and lack of communication between the UPPCL and the government.

It all started when Arvind Kumar refused to sign the agreement between the Minister and the Power Employees Union on October 5, 2020 after they had threatened to go on strike. The matter reached the CM’s office following which Kumar signed the papers on October 6.

“If a senior minister of the stature of Shrikant Sharna is forced to air his grievances on Twitter, this shows what kind of transparency is there in the Yogi cabinet. Sharma was earlier a national spokesman of the BJP and has roots in the RSS. Despite that, the CM is not willing to listen to him. This proves there is no transparency in the working of the UP Government,’ senior Congress leader Amarnath Agarwal quipped.