Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has come down heavily on an officer for alleged dereliction of duty.
In a letter that he wrote to the chief secretary MM Kutty on Monday, Sisodia asked him to take action against the director of the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) Jayadev Sarangi for his "failure" to do the work assigned to him.
The move comes days after Sarangi denied permission to a Facebook Live event of Sisodia, during which the deputy chief minister would have discussed the issues related to GST with the traders, saying an open tender was required to organise such an event.
In the letter, Sisodia, who heads the DIP, said the officer did not know that such an event did not require an open tender and instead, needed only an internet connection and a camera.
The letter also cited an instance in which the DIP had refused to give permission to an advertisement campaign of the Delhi government on the recently-introduced minimum wages in the national capital.
"National GST Council met on June 3. I wanted to seek the views and suggestions of Delhi’s traders before going for this meeting. Therefore on May 25 and then on May 30, I directed Sh. Sarangi to arrange my FB Live interaction on June 1 or June 2. He wrote back to me saying that the same cannot be arranged as it would require open tender, which would need one month’s time. I was aghast to read that. Why do you need open tender for FB Live?”the office order reads.
“You do not need to spend a single penny on FB Live. This means this officer neither knows what FB Live is nor has desire to learn. It is really shameful that the director of information and publicity of the Capital of India does not know what FB Live is,” it added.
With PTI Inputs
