The Punjab government finds itself in an embarrassing situation as it is revealed that AAP minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal was overseeing a department that existed only on paper.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Alok Das, this is Shreya Chowdhury.
00:01We have some more breaking news coming in from Punjab.
00:10Huge embarrassment for Maan in Punjab.
00:12AAP minister runs non-existent department in Punjab.
00:16AAP minister runs non-existent department for about 20 months.
00:19Punjab Minister Kuldeep Dhalewal was assigned non-existent department.
00:23The Punjab government has now been left red-faced after a notification.
00:27My colleague Aseem Basti is joining us live on the broadcast with more details.
00:36Aseem, help our viewers understand on what exactly the confusion was.
00:40How is it that an AAP minister was able to run a department that essentially did not
00:44exist and the government did not take notice of it for the last 20 months?
00:48Well, as far as we have learned that in the last reshuffle, Kuldeep Dhalewal was robed
00:58of few charges but he was given the NRI ministry, he had earlier the NRI ministry and the administrative
01:04reforms.
01:05But as the days, as the months and past and almost one and a half year ago passed, nothing
01:12came up.
01:13But suddenly things came up saying that this administrative reforms department is a non-existent
01:19department.
01:20So suddenly the Punjab governor issued a notification with the nod of the chief minister that we
01:25need to scrap this department because this is a non-existent department.
01:28We checked from our sources, it is learned that the minister or his staff continued to
01:32keep asking the bureaucrats that where is this department, where is the office, who
01:37is the officer involved.
01:38There was no IAS to it, no office to it.
01:41It was only on papers.
01:42The administrative reforms department was only on papers.
01:46It lacked physicality.
01:48It was not physically present.
01:49So it is a huge embarrassment for the government which has given a portfolio to a minister
01:55which was non-existent.
01:57So now they have found it out and now it has led them into a major embarrassment.
02:01Thanks for bringing us those details.
02:03Quite shocking the fact that it took nearly two years for the government to take notice
02:07that one of the key portfolios that had been assigned in fact does not exist.
02:10This is a huge embarrassment for the Bhagwant Mahant government in Punjab.