Mumbai: The allocation of portfolios by dividing the state departments may lead to some sort of confusion at the administration level, say sources from Mantralaya.
The portfolio allocation, announced on Saturday night on the concluding day of the winter session of the state legislature, saw newer divisions of the departments.
The departments of relief and rehabilitation, water resources, delinking of animal husbandry and dairy development department have been some of the prominent examples, say the government officials.
Although the department of agriculture, animal husbandry, dairy development and fisheries is interconnected, it has been divided among three ministers.
In one of the last cabinet meetings headed by the then CM Eknath Shinde, it was decided to merge animal husbandry and the dairy development department.
A decision was issued as a Government resolution (GR) on October 10. The two separate posts of the commissioners – each for the animal husbandry department and the dairy development were also merged creating one post as the commissioner of animal husbandry and dairy development.
Now, during the portfolio allocation exercise, the department of animal husbandry has been allocated to Pankaja Munde and the dairy development to Atul Save, both from the BJP. This has baffled the administration since the merger of the department was approved by the government only.
In another case, the department of relief and rehabilitation along with disaster management is interlinked. The relief and rehab work for any calamity is done as per the SOPs defined under the disaster management which also procures various equipment to handle the critical situations.
The policies for the relief works are formulated by the National Disaster Management Authority which has its state wing headed by the chief minister. Now, the department has been divided between Makrand Patil and Girish Mahajan of the NCP and the BJP respectively.
The water resources department had a separate minister for the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (MKVDC) when the Congress-NCP government was in power from 1999 to 2014.
It was done for the speedy completion of the projects of MKVDC which covers most of the parts of western Maharashtra and parts of Marathwada.
Since the NCP was stronger in the western parts of the state, the MKVDC was allotted to Ajit Pawar for a few years. The BJP discontinued the practice when it came to power in 2014.
But now, the BJP has divided the department between Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and Girish Mahajan. The irrigation corporations for Tapi, Konkan, and Vidarbha will be handled by Mahajan and the corporations for MKVDC and Godavari Marathwada will be with Vikhe Patil.
The real trouble will be at the administrative level since the department of water resources at the Mantralaya level is just one. It is feared that almost all the files dealing with policy matters, government decisions, issues referred to the Central government, and establishment-level issues will have to be routed through both the ministers leading to chaos, say the officials.
