IAS Ashok Kumar Parmar files a complaint to National Commission for Scheduled Castes against J&K Lt Governor for “inflicting harassment and humiliation”

Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor, Manoj Sinha and Chief Secretary has been accused of “inflicting harassment and humiliation” upon IAS officer Ashok Kumar Parmar, hailing for the Dalit community. Parmar alleges that such atrocities were inflicted upon him because he flagged the “bunglings” in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission in J&K. 

A 1992 AGMUT cadre, Ashok Kumar Parmar has filed a complaint against the Lt Governor and Chief Secretary to the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. He accuses them of “harassment, humiliation, intimidation, atrocious behavior and frequent transfers for his being a Scheduled Caste solely for the reason that he blew whistle and highlighted bunglings in implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission.” The Jal Jeevan Mission is a welfare scheme rolled out by the Central Government that aims to provide tap water to every rural household by 2024. Kumar alleges that the implementation of this scheme is flawed in J&K owing to the state government’s apathy. Parmar has also Prime Minister’s Office regarding the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission in J&K. 

 In May 2022 Parmar was the principle secretary of the Jal Shakti department in Jammu and Kashmir. It is during this time that he had informed Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, the chief secretary and the authority at large about the “dismal status of implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission.” He alleges that the scheme was being implemented without the conducting a SWOT Analysis, which is the standard protocol to gauge the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that entail any given scheme, and its area of implementation. He further alleges that the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme was progressing at an abysmally slow pace “because of erroneous and faulty procedure for allotment of works.”

In his complaint, the IAS officer has said that Lt Governor Sinha made him leave the meeting room on June 6, 2022. As per Parmar, Manoj Sinha did this to “harass and humiliate him without any fault and this was done in front of all the administrative secretaries of UT of J&K.” He stated that his predicament did not end here, he wa subjected to the same treatment on July 25, 2023, when he was thrown out of the meeting room by Chief secretary Arun Kumar Mehta with the motive to “humiliated and threw him out of the meeting of the Committee of Secretaries without any fault.” Moreover, he has said that was subjected to frequent transfers that were in clear violation of the transfer policy of the Government of India. 

“Intimidation and harassment was done purposely due to prejudice and bias against him for being a Scheduled Caste and his act of highlighting bunglings in Jal Jeevan Mission”, states the complaint filed by IAS Ashok Kumar Parmar to the Natinal Commission for Scheduled Castes. The complaint also records the IAS officer’s apprehensions pertaining to Lt Governor Sinha’s conduct saying that he “might go to any extent to damage his reputation and career by implicating him in false cases as he had pointed out many financial irregularities and acts of omission and commission of Mehta, Chief Secretary, RR Bhatnagar Advisor to LG and others in the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission.”

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