Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)

Bengaluru, Sep 24: Rohini Sindhuri, IAS officer known for her honesty is at the receiving end again. She was removed from her present post of secretary of the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board as she did not allow the funds that were meant for the upliftment of labourers to be misused.

Labour commissioner K G Shantaram is given the charge of the secretary of the labour welfare board as Sindhuri was transferred by the state government on September 20. Sindhuri is yet to get a new position. The labour portfolio is held by Chief Minister of the state B S Yediyurappa.

Sindhuri was trying update the streamlining of the expenditure of the board as only Rs 800 crores were spent in the last eight years, though the board has a corpus of Rs 8,000 crore. This corpus is mainly accumulated through labour cess of one per cent that is levied on all private and government construction projects.

It is learnt through sources that Sindhuri was pressurized to spend this amount on purposes other than labour welfare, which could have led to misuse of the same. A senior IAS officer confirmed the fact and said that he is aware of the reasons that led to the transfer of Sindhuri.

ln one such act of pressurizing to go out of the way in spending funds, Sindhuri was asked by one of the senior IAS officers to give the project work of state owned Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (Keonics) to people without calling the tender. However, Sindhuri, it is said was firm on calling tender from the open market as she knew that Keonics track record of implementing the project is dismal.

Sindhuri was also asked to handover the project of 24x7 helpline dedicated to labour welfare, which is a six digit project. Sindhuri was asked to expedite the helpline project by P Manivannan, labour secretary on August 30.

It is also said that Sindhuri was asked do away with funds that are kept for labour welfare, for flood relief activities. She was asked to give Rs 3,000 crore in the first phase and Rs 1,000 crore later for the distribution of food packets, furniture and lighting in the flood-affected regions of the state.

The worry which Sindhuri had was that the money given for flood relief will not be used properly as there is no system in place for the same. In addition, Sindhuri also knew that the labour cess collected by the government is monitored by the Supreme Court and there are strict guidelines with respect to its expenditure.

The labour board was about to launch the project of providing mobile creches for children of women who work in around 100 constructions sites in the capital city. But the project might get delayed or scrapped due to the sudden transfer of Sindhuri.

T M Vijay Bhaskar, chief secretary, in a statement, said that the government has the knowledge of the concerns put forward by people over the transfer of an honest IAS officer like Sindhuri.

Rohini Sindhur, the 2009 batch IAS officer had a major tussle with the then ministers A Manju and H D Revanna when she was posted as the deputy commissioner of Hassan district as she reportedly denied to succumb to their unethical pressures.