Flyover flashpoint: Rajan Mittal’s head finally rolls

LUCKNOW: Rajan Mittal, who had a controversial stint as PWD chief engineer and then as managing director of Bridge Corporation in the Akhilesh Yadav regime, had tried to defend himself by blaming the tragedy on strong winds dislodging the beams and the administration’s failure to divert traffic near the site.
This angered CM Yogi, who is learnt to have ordered his immediate sacking, before the first report by the inquiry committee was released.
Differences between chief minister Yogi and his deputy and PWD minister Keshav Prasad Maurya have grown after the flyover collapse. Yogi’s public promise to make state roads potholefree also boomeranged.
However, a stubborn Maurya retained his blueeyed boy Rajan Mittal as acting managing director of UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam, the biggest construction agency of the state. This, even after his sacking from Bridge Corporation.
Maurya had given the tainted engineer dual charge of Bridge Corporation and Rajkiya Nirman Nigam, even though he had no expertise in construction of bridges and his career graph spanned only the road sector.
The two construction agencies have a combined annual turnover of Rs 1 lakh crore and this is linked to Mittal’s expertise in working with “system”, which in government parlance means keeping bosses happy. Earlier, no engineer ever held these twin top positions.
Mittal was a pliable officer and was once close to Samajwadi Party bosses and even served in Etawah, the backyard of then ruling Yadav clan for three years. He held cream postings in other places too during the SP regime. As allegations of corruption in allotment of work mounted, then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked him. But, Maurya re-instated him as managing director of Bridge Corporation.
It was Mittal’s inexperience in constructing bridges that cost him heavily when two 300-tonne cement beams fell upon crawling traffic in Varanasi on Tuesday.
It was big embarrassment to the PM as the Opposition reminded him of his words when a bridge caved in Kolkata and he went hammer and tongs against chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Now, it’s to be seen whether chief minister Yogi Adityanath will be able to strip his deputy Maurya of dual charge of two construction agencies or will he contend with part action against a tainted engineer Rajan Mittal.