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| Nirmal Singh misses his own presser! | | |
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Nov 4: Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, who is also the Housing Minister, could not make it in time on Wednesday to his own press conference, which he had called to highlight his "achievements".
Sources said the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), was supposed to handover three drainage projects, which have been already commissioned in the past around a decade, to Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC).
As per the initial plan, ERA officials had to handover the control of the drainage projects, for any maintenance to the SMC, at a simple function which was scheduled to be held at SMC office here.
"Basically these drainage projects have already been operational for several years and its maintenance was to be handed over from ERA to SMC. It was to be a simple formality to be done by the officials of the two departments," said an official in City Drainage.
Sources said for the sake of formality, the Housing Minister was informed about the development, before hand. "But the moment he (Minister) got to know that the handover/takeover would be done by officials, he said he would personally do it to fetch media publicity," sources said.
Singh instantly got the venue of the meeting changed from SMC head office to his official residence at MA Road here. The Minister also asked the officials of the departments concerned to call a press conference in connection with handover/takeover and keep the official press release about the development ready.
The officials called a press conference at the Minister's residence as per the Minister's instructions. According to the protocol for such press conferences, the press release was distributed among the media persons and everybody was waiting for the Deputy Chief Minister to arrive to make the announcement.
The media persons started reading handout which reads: "Handing over/taking over was accomplished at an impressive function held under the chairmanship of Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh today between Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation Showkat Ahmed Zargar and Chief Executive Officer ERA Vinod Sharma."
Sources said the Minister wanted the handouts to be ready so that media persons concentrate on the drainage issue and avoid posing "controversial questions on issues like BJP's failure to get tax on Mata Vaishnu Devi shrine revoked."
But as everyone was waiting for the Deputy Chief Minister to arrive, he got stuck in a massive traffic jam enroute.
For around an hour the media persons kept waiting but the Minister remained stuck in the jams. It was only when the media persons had left the venue, the Minister finally reached his residence. He was shocked to see that the media had left.
Officials said the Minister missed the chance of publicity, the way he wanted to cash the simple handover/takeover of drainage network. |
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