Forest Dept info officer told he may resign, but can not cite humiliation by minister as reason
Forest Dept info officer told he may resign, but can not cite humiliation by minister as reason
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An information officer with the Forest Department who recently submitted his resignation citing public humiliation by the Forest Minister has now been told that he may put in his papers, but without blaming anyone.
Prabhakar Kukdolkar, the information officer, had submitted his resignation to seniors in the Forest Ministry, but it was rejected. He said the reply he got was that his resignation was rejected because he had blamed Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam.
Alleging Kadam had humiliated him at four public meetings and called him inefficient, the officer had sent his resignation on October 8.
The reply Kukdolkar received from the Nagpur office of the department two days ago gave him two options.
The first option was that he could "resign unconditionally as per government rules". The second was that he could go for the voluntary retirement scheme and get 50 per cent of his salary as pension every month. Now Kukdolkar is studying government rules and consulting experts for his next move.u00a0
Kukdolkar has served 28 years in the department and has eight more years to go before retirement. "It is sad and frustrating that the minister only speaks to top officers who travel with him in aeroplanes. These people don't have any knowledge of the ground reality. My department does not have adequate funds and has not got a single paisa for the bills for the four programmes the minister was invited for," said Kukdolkar.
Kadam could not be contacted for comment.