PUDUCHERRY: The daily work routine of Cholleti Prabhakar reads thus: Come on time at his office in the chief secretariat, merely sit there during work hours and head back home at the end of the day. No surprises here-for, this IAS officer appointed as secretary to Puducherry government, has been without a department for the last five months-after being shunted out of the subjects of fisheries and tourism.Prabakar, a 2000-batch IAS officer who joined the administration on June 10, 2008, has been without a department since this January 19. For two-and-a-half years till January 18, he had served as the secretary of revenue, rural development, tourism, fisheries, excise and temple administration. But on the following day, the government issued orders to take away the two posts he held at that time and he has kept idle since then. Fisheries was assigned to P Mathew Sammuel and tourism to B R Babu.There are 10 IAS officers serving as government secretaries, five Puducherry civil services officers working as special secretaries and a technical officer serving as law secretary. All of them have been allocated subjects, except for Prabakar.The decision to strip Prabhakar of his post was taken by the former Congress government, led by V Vaithilingam. A clueless Prabhakar said he had no inkling of what made the government take such a decision. In the same breath he claimed that there were no allegations against him in Puducherry or during any of the previous postings in Andhra Pradesh and Goa. He insisted that, on the contrary, he had earned a lot of appreciation as secretary of rural development in Goa. Prabhakar was assigned the department of rural development on joining the Puducherry administration, but was removed within a month. He claimed sanctions were given to all fishing harbour projects in Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam when he was fisheries secretary. During his stint as tourism secretary, the building and premises of the catering college were completed and work on the promenade on the beach was initiated.Sources, though, claim that differences with then revenue minister Malladi Krishna Rao, who was also holding the portfolios of fisheries and tourism, led to Prabakar’s downfall. Rao was reportedly unhappy as Prabhakar kept files pending and delayed their clearing. He is said to have stalled decision on files with financial implication of up to `20 lakh within the purview of the secretary and referred to the chief secretary. The monthly pension to fishermen, which needs to be sanctioned by the sixth of every month, was, in fact, delayed till the 10th or the 15th during Prabakar’s stint. The delay in rice and cash distribution to fishermen during the fishing ban, which Rao wanted to be cleared before the Assembly poll, also led to much dissatisfaction. Several files were returned with queries to the director, when Prabhakar could have called him and cleared them after discussion, sources close to Rao said. Rao had wanted all pending works to be finished before the recently held Assembly election as the model code of conduct would restrict their completion. The former revenue minister, who has the reputation of following all matters with the Indian government in person, wanted the five projects sanctioned by the tourism ministry, including the rural tourism project, to go on floor. However, Prabhakar reportedly dragged his feet on the Rs 50-crore tourism project, which led to the decision to strip him of his posts. Besides, he was not in the good books of the chief secretary, as he attended review meetings without preparation and could not provide answers to his queries, sources said.Even the change of guard in the UT has not helped Prabakar.
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