Mumbai, Dec 21 (TOI): A year after Devendra Fadnavis granted permission to the ACB to conduct an open inquiry against NCP leaders --Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare and Chhagan Bhubal, it appears that the agency has not taken the assignment seriously, leaving the CM embarrassed. As the leader of opposition, Fadnavis had demanded an ACB probe against Pawar and Tatkare for their roles in irrigation projects and Bhujbal for the alleged irregularities in Maharashtra Sadan construction. When he became the CM, the first policy decision he took was to entrust the probe to the ACB.

A statement regarding the same had also been made before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC. In view of the seriousness of the case, it was assumed that the ACB will complete the probe in a time-bound period and register cases against the NCP leaders. Though the ACB did record statements of Pawar and Tatkare, the present status of the probe is unknown. Even highranking cabinet members in the BJP government are not sure if a criminal case under the Prevention Of Corruption Act has been made out against Pawar and Tatkare.As far as Bhujbal is concerned, the ACB has filed two criminal cases against him in the Maharashtra Sadan and Mumbai University land cases.

However, even as the ACB was in the process of filing a chargesheet against Bhujbal, it received a jolt when the PWD submitted a report, saying there was no irregularity in the construction of Maharashtra Sadan. The report was submitted on December 5 and had been gathering dust at the ACB. After the report was published in TOI, ACB sleuths sought clarification from the PWD on its contents. A high-ranking bureaucrat said it's too late as massive damage has already been done. Tackling the agri crisis

The Bombay HC has taken note of the ambitious plan drafted by Akola's 30-year-old collector G Sreekanth. A month after he took over the reins of the administration, Sreekanth, a1999batch IAS officer, found that while there was a steady spurt in farmers' suicide, there was also a massive sco pe to tackled the agrarian crisis. Sree kanth drafted a 10-point mission as he felt that the agrarian crisis, resulting in large number of suicides, should be treated as a disaster and there sho uld be a comprehensive action plan for prevention of disaster and post disaster strategy . It was found that far mers were committing suicides owing to huge loans, lack of adequate power, water and job opportunities, grossly inadequate education faciliti es and, above all, concern over costs of children's weddings. Sreekanth draf ted an action plan for rehabilitation of farmers and ensured that they are encouraged to take up self-employ ment, with a reasonable daily income.

As a preventive measure, he set up a farmers committee in every village, headed by the sarpanch and with prominent villagers and govern ment officials on it. A list of fa milies in distress was prepa red and the committee was entrusted with the task of in teracting with them for coun selling. Further, Sreekanth asked every officer to adopt at least one village, un derstand the pro blems of the vil lagers and prepa re an action plan to tackle the cri sis. Says Sree kanth, the results of his mission relief are quite encoura ging and will be imple mented in all the villa ges in Akola district.

Dharna to ban dance bars

Suman Patil, widow of former home minister R R Patil, has step ped in to demand a ban on dance bars. During the ongoing winter ses sion of the state legislature, she was on a day-long protest to press for the demand. She was joined in by many women legislators, comprising Yas homati Thakur and Varsha Gaikwad.

Suman said it was essential to enforce the ban owing to their ill-effects on the society and the young generation. Her agitation was unexpected as no one thought she will resort to a dharna.

Food and civil supplies minister Gi rish Bapat immediately reached the dharna venue to know for himself Su man's contention. Bapat assured that his government was in favour of the ban. After the death of R R, Suman had contested the byelection to the As sembly from Tasgaon in Sangli and won by a massive margin. In 2005, R R had taken a lead in amending the Ma harashtra Police Act to ban dance bars. But it was struck down by the HC and the SC too upheld the verdict.