Upgrading DIPR to a major Dept : Bring in media professionals
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 23 , 2014 -

It should be apparent to any keen observers that the bureaucrats have more often than not misguided the Council of Ministers, particularly the office of the Chief Minister.

Two recent examples should underline this observation.

In the first place, Chief Minister O Ibobi was totally out of depth during the pre-budget discussion with the new Finance Minister Arun Jaitley some time back.

To those who are not well acquainted with the finer nuances of economics and financial management, the Chief Minister’s presentation to the Union Finance Minister may seem to be perfectly in line with the needs of the State, but to those who know something about financial matters, it was something totally out of sync with the aims and objectives of the pre-budget discussion.

The draft that was prepared by the suited, booted class of Manipur for the Chief Minister should have been addressed to the Union Planning Commission or the Finance Commission.

Certainly not in a pre-budget discussion with the Finance Minister. Incompetency and lethargy is writ large over this and this is where the universal observation that a lethargic and corrupt bureaucracy is more dangerous than a corrupt and incompetent political leadership gains credence, for the politicians have to always go back to the people while the bureaucrats are permanent, that is until they retire.

The next one is the decision to upgrade the Directorate of Information and Public Relations to a major department.

What are the yardsticks which determine whether a department should be a major or a minor one ?

There seems to be no clear cut definition or say nothing is laid down in black and white. Here again it is a case of the bureaucrats misguiding the political leadership.

Will upgrading the State DIPR to the status of a major department make it more efficient ? Unlikely. If the Government puts its mind into the matter, then it should have thought out of the box and made the DIPR a thoroughly professional department.

Instead what we see are IAS or MCS officers occupying the post of Director, without any idea of what disseminating information to the public is. More like a case of a doctor appointed as the Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department or an engineer posted as the Director of the Health Directorate !

The primary responsibility and duty of the DIPR is to disseminate information to the public and thereby cultivate a good image of the Government.

At the moment, it is left only to the independent and privately owned media houses to highlight the activities of the Government. Extend this point a little more and this would amount to saying that the DIPR has failed in its duty and the primary cause for this is without a doubt the absence of professionals running its day to day affairs.

Examples can be taken from the All India Radio, Doordarshan and the Press Information Bureau where professionals, coming from the Indian Information Service are appointed to look after its functioning.

A look at some of the neighbouring States should expose how the bureaucrats here have been misguiding the Government, particularly the office of the Chief Minister.

To cite some examples, the Information and Public Relations Departments in Nagaland, Assam and Mizoram are all manned and run by media professionals and not some bureaucrats who cannot see the difference between a news story and an advertisement. These neighbouring States have also framed their own State Information Service Rules.

What is stopping the State Government from taking a leaf out from the neighbouring States and then act accordingly ? This is the information age.

All the more reason why the DIPR should be streamlined and run like a professional department. The very fact that the State DIPR has not deemed it important to make use of the New Media, that is the social media, and be the link between the Government and the public is ample testimony of how it has been afflicted by lethargy and the inability to think out of the box.

Boot out the non-professionals and bring in media professionals. It makes no sense to upgrade DIPR to a major department if the present lacunae is not dealt with.