Chavan shows who’s slower in clearing files Chief minister prepares dossier to compare his work with that of his predecessors

Chavan shows who’s slower in clearing files

Chief minister prepares dossier to compare his work with that of his predecessors

In a direct attack on his detractors, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said that off the recent chief ministers who preceded him, he was the fastest when it came to taking decisions and clearing files. Chavan has been under fire ever since he came to Mumbai as the CM in November 2010 with many alleging that he was extremely slow in taking decisions. This was raised to fever pitch in recent time when his government’s ally, the NCP, complained of slowness in decision-making. “I keep hearing this complaint that I am slow in taking decisions so I asked my office to prepare a dossier on the decisions and the time taken by my predecessors,” Chavan said, “and I found that compared to Vilasrao Deshmukh, both in his first and second tenure, and Ashok Chavan, I had taken decisions much faster than them.” Chavan was speaking at small event where senior journalist Kumar Ketkar was felicitated. Chavan pointed out that rather than take hasty decisions at the behest of a minister or a party, he was seeking to set up systems that would create “rule-based governance”. “But creating rules means consulting a number of people and institutions and that takes time, so it is easy to say decisions are not being taken,” he said. The CM gave the example of the housing regulatory bill, which will not just create a regulator but also an appellate so that all citizens now have a place to turn to rather than seek political intervention. Giving examples of bills cleared ever since he became CM, he listed the RTE, no repayment of loans up to Rs1.5 lakh taken by farmers hit by drought, the ban on gutka, medical insurance of the poor, clearing the Navi Mumbai airport, okaying the Mumbai trans-harbour link that was pending for years, among others. Earlier, Kumar Ketkar criticised the media for always being negative. Ketkar gave the example of how years ago, trade unions and media opposed computerisation even though there was no clear reason. He added that this mindset must end. Ketkar urged the media to study an issue, analyse its long-term impact before blindly opposing any policy merely for the sake of opposing.