Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Dec 12: While all over India the government puts best efforts to support media, so that media houses can take up pubic issues prominently and functions properly as a watchdog of democracy, in Andaman, things are other way round.
In Andaman and Nicobar Islands bills of several lacks of every media house are presently pending in various departments, despite there are clear cut directions from past Lt. Governors and Chief Secretaries that all bills of media houses must be cleared in one month time.
Infact several circulars have been issued by the Information and Publicity Division to all the departments in this regard but most of the departments have kept bills pending and are disobeying the directions of LG, CS offices.
In a place like Andaman and Nicobar Islands sometime it becomes too difficult to understand who is who’s boss and who is taking directions from whom. Sometimes clerical staffs behave like Chief Secretary.
“It is found that in many occasions this delay is caused due to lethargic clerical staffs of various departments, who perhaps got the habit of not clearing bills without commission. As media bills are usually of very low amount, the bills are not even entertained in many departments and kept pending for several years,” said a media person.
Due to pending bills many media houses are suffering heavily and are forced to go for job cuts. Hope the Chief Secretary will find time to look into this matter and take action against those clerical staffs, who are spoiling the name of Administration.
It is found that clerical staffs of Fisheries, Rural Development and Electricity Department are leading among other departments in keeping maximum bills of media pending.
