By Anurjay Dhal
RAJKANIKA/KENDRAPARA(ODISHA): A day after ‘Junior Vikatan’ a Tamil Nadu based Magazine portraying Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as “Chanakya of Disaster Management”, another Tamil connected , English news website, The www.newstodaynet.com, hailed Patnaik’s 2 trusted lieutenant, V Kartikeyan Pandian and R Balakrishnan. ‘Junior Vikatan’ has carried a photo of the five-time Chief Minister Patnaik on its cover page captioning it that the entire world is following the Odisha model to fight the battle against coronavirus.
“Sources said, apart from VKP and RB , several other IAS and IPS officers working overtime to save the face of Government in view of COVID-19 outbreak but surprisingly, Tamil Nadu based media houses preferring to write only on NaPa, VKP and RB. While Pandian is Private Secretary to CM cum 5T Secretary and Balakrishnan is Chief Advisor to CM Patnaik and both hails from Tamil Nadu and rules both at Lok Seva Bhawan as well as Naveen Niwas.
The Tamil Nadu based, English news website carried a news item dated on April 11(Saturday) bearing headline “2 Tamil Nadu officers add strength to Odisha’s Corona Fight,” written by Balasubramani Muniyandi, has not gone well with other mandarins, those who are working overtime from Lok Seva Bhawan to their Government allotted Residential establishments.
The News Website wrote that it is said that two top officials with their roots in Tamil Nadu played a major role in the move.They are V Karthikeyan Pandian, a 2000 batch IAS officer and Private Secretary to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik since 2011 and retired IAS officer R Balakrishnan who is the Principal Advisor (Special Initiative).
Karthikeyan Pandian is credited as the man behind the Odisha Chief Minister’s 5-T mantra (Team work, technology, transparency, transformation and time limit). He served as Collector of Ganjam, the CM’s home district. Under him, Ganjam emerged as the best performing district in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in 2008.
This is significant given the fact that Ganjam is known for high migration of labourers. Naveen brought Pandian to his office in May 2011 and the officer has been his trusted aide ever since. He is credited with efficient handling of Naveen’s works and is hardly visible in public or before the media, it wrote.
“Balakrishnan, a 1984-batch IAS officer, is known as efficient and honest bureaucrat. Under his leadership, Odisha could host international sports events like Asian Athletics Championship in 2017 and World Cup Men’s Hockey in 2018.Odia language got recognition as a classical language in the country. He is the architect of establishment of Odia University. With his initiatives the State government started the Knowledge Hub Lecturer Series to update the knowledge of the bureaucrats and political leaders. His pet project –The Virtual Academy, a digital library of books on Odisha’s litrature and culture, has started getting hits from all over the world,” it said.
