Appointment of Brig Ganguly as security advisor to Punjab police: wildly unreasonable and patently absurd says Bir Devinder Singh

Appointment of Brig Ganguly as security advisor to Punjab police: wildly unreasonable and patently absurd says Bir Devinder Singh

Nabaz-e-Punjab Bureau, Chandigarh, June 23:
Former Deputy Speaker Punjab Vidhan Sabha Bir Devinder Singh said It sounds wildly unreasonable, inappropriate and patently absurd, to appoint a retired army officer Brig. Gautam Ganguly as Security adviser to Punjab Police. I wonder what impelled the State Government to resort to such a desperate and out of the box measure which made the top police hierarchy look clumsy. The cosmetic development renders the most competent police officers as incompetent to assist the DGP in handling difficult security conditions in Punjab. I’m afraid that lack of work culture synchronization, between the top-level police officers and the newly appointed advisor, the desired operation would prove counterproductive. The very propriety of the purpose of setting a new gratuitous convention of having a ‘Security advisor’ for the Punjab Police, is a questionable misnomer. What would be the overlapping role of so many ADGPs; such as ADGP (law and Order) ADGP (training) ADGP(Security), ADGP (Internal Security) and ADGP (Counterinsurgency) ADGP( Special task Force) at the police Head Quarter vis a vis a high profile Security Advisor? Already the State has top heavy police set up, with 8 DGPs, 2 Special DGPs and 20 ADGPs, 28 IGs and DIGs difficult to count even. It is pertinent to mention here that a couple of DGP and ADGP rank officers of the Punjab cadre are just sitting unoccupied on insignificant postings, with no important job to perform, curtsy egoistic, complicated weanlings’ among the top brass of the Punjab police.
Why have a ’straightjacket’ DGP at the first place, who needs an Army officer as Security adviser to handle the security affairs of the State, over and above the significant strength of ADGPs, IGs (Zonal) and DIGs of various Ranges, who all have rich field experience, having combated successfully the protracted militant insurgency, during most trying times in Punjab?
Ironically in a cash starved State, facing unprecedented resources crunch the practice of having ‘Advisers’, must be done away with. Appallingly in the office of the Chief Minister, the State exchequer is unnecessarily burdened with the tortious liability of ten superfluous advisors. It is worth mentioning here that even during many stints of the President’s rule in the State; the strength of full-time advisors appointed with the Governor, had never exceeded more than four. Despite having a battery of advisors in the CMO, the Chief Minister continues to commit monumental blunders, unabatedly, almost every day!!
Unfortunately the era of ‘legislative governance’ is seemingly a bygone era in Punjab. Under the dispensation of Capt. Amarinder Singh, all the tools of legislative governance under the aegis of Parliamentary Democracy, the statutes on the books are treated as relics of bygone times. And sadly enough, nobody, in the State Cabinet or in the legislature, has the audacity to question the veracity of ‘whimsical and oral governance’ in the State, having no conformity with the legal contours of lawful governance.