New Delhi (18.03.2021): Former Petroleum Secretary MM Kutty (Retd IAS:1985:UT) must be one among many who might have realized that a post-retirement engagement in a government organization isn't always a crown of roses or the crowning glory of a long career.
Five months after he was made the chairman of the Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM), he has been constrained to walk away, or relieved, from the arduous and difficult job because the Ordinance for establishing the CAQM, issued in October 2020, has lapsed.
While the lapse of the CAQM Ordinance, for whatever reason/s, is another story, the Kutty episode might have taught officials never to be in a hurry to take up a post-retirement job in a government body that might have been created by an ordinance and not by an act of Parliament.
Besides Kutty, Professor Mukesh Khare (IIT-D) and Ramesh K J (Ex-DG IMD), who were also appointed as the full-time technical members of the Commission for a term of three years or until the attainment of the age of 70 years, might have come to rue their decision on joining the CAQM.
Officials say that while Kutty and others had had their innings in the Govt, for Arvind Kumar Nautiyal (IRSME:1992), the appointment in the CAQM turned out to be a great disappointment as he had more time to serve at the Centre as a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
On November 05, 2020, Nautiyal was made a full-time member of the CAQM, but he may have to now repatriate to his parent cadre of the Indian Railways because of the unexpected turn of events regarding the CAQM.
(By Rakesh Ranjan)
