UP govt targeting me,suspended officer tells Centre

Uttar Pradeshs seniormost IAS officer Promilla Shanker,who was suspended last month for travelling abroad,allegedly without the governments permission

Uttar Pradeshs seniormost IAS officer Promilla Shanker,who was suspended last month for travelling abroad,allegedly without the governments permission,has written to the Department of Personnel and Training,Government of India,saying that she is being victimised for speaking her mind on the state governments massive urbanisation plan along the Yamuna Expressway which violated the NCR Regional Plan 2021.

In the letter,copies of which she has sent to Union Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterji,Shanker has said the state government has unleashed a reign of terror and fear in the administration and officers who speak their mind are harassed and sidelined as they have done to me in past four years.

I have served for over 35 years with utmost diligence,total integrity and sincerity. My record is blemish-less and when I am due to retire in February 2012,the state governments action to suspend me for no reason is to humiliate me further, she has written.

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The letter says,It is the responsibility of the Government to India to protect the morale of all-India services. They cannot and should not remain a mute spectator when its members are being trampled upon in performance of their duty.

Shanker,who belongs to the 1976 batch,is the seniormost IAS officer in UP,senior even to Chief Secretary Anoop Mishra who is from the 1978 batch. There was a move to make her president of the state IAS Association which is still without a head.

Interestingly,both Seth and Chatterji also belong to the UP cadre,and both are from the 1974 batch.

At the time of her suspension,Shanker was posted as Commissioner in the National Capital Region Cell of the UP government,which is part of the Housing and Urban Planning Department and has its office in Ghaziabad.

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A few days earlier,she had objected to the states masterplan for massive urbanisation along the Yamuna Expressway.

Her objections had troubled the state government,which is already facing litigation against the alleged wrongful acquisition of agricultural land in the NCR.

In her letter,Promila Shanker has alleged that there was pressure on her cell to approve the masterplan of the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority and get it incorporated in the sub-regional plan of National Capital Region,which was illogical and unrealistic.