3 officials under APO

BIKANER: Kiran Maheshwari, Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) minister was on a two-day visit here. She directed the PHED authorities to see to it that officials (from JEN to superintending engineer) should be in the field for at least three days in a week. They should, at all times, keep their mobile phones on. Maheshwari added that stern action will be taken against officers found guilty of any kind of negligence.
The minister had a meeting on Thursday which was also attended by Bikaner MP Arjun Meghwal, MLAs Gopal Joshi, Vishwanath Meghwal, Kishna Ram Nai, Bhanwar Singh Bhati, mayor Narayan Chopra and zila pramukh Sushila Sinwar. Former MLA Devi Singh Bhati was also present in the meeting.
During the meeting, three PHED officials were given APO. They are Narendra Arora, assistant engineer who did not attend the meeting; executive engineer Sushil Kashyap who came for the meeting without preparation and Akhtar Hussain who was found guilty of not paying heed to public grievances and for switching off his mobile phone. During the period of APO, Narendra Arora will be shifted to Bharatpur, Sushil Kashyap to Barmer and Akhtar Hussain to Jaisalmer.
Maheshwari said that providing sufficient and pure drinking water to every person is the utmost priority of state government and sufficient funds will be made available to PHED for this. She asked the authorities to conduct periodical monitoring of the ongoing projects and facilities. She added that suitable proposals may be sent to the government to remove any lacuna.
The minister said that authorities should give proper attention to the areas situated along the border in Kolayat and Khajuwala, particularly in this scorching weather. She said that the government has framed a plan to incur expenditure up to Rs 300 crore in these border areas towards cleaning of diggis, setting up of filter plants and construction of new diggis.