UP-cadre IAS officer B. Chandrakala has often been in focus for cracking down on corrupt and negligent govt officials, but has now been booked by CBI herself.
Lucknow: On a winter morning four years ago, the district magistrate of Bulandshahr reached a road construction site to find bad quality bricks being used.
Irked by the lackadaisical attitude of the local municipal officials, she threatened to lodge an FIR against them on the grounds of corruption, alleging that public money was being wasted. A video clip of the incident had gone viral.
Fast forward to the present, and the same IAS officer, B. Chandrakala, has been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation on charges of corruption in an illegal mining case.
CBI sleuths Saturday conducted raids in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, including two residences of Chandrakala, and is believed to have seized documents. The 2008-batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer is alleged to have allowed illegal mining of minerals and violated the e-tender systems in giving mining contracts between 2012 and 2016 in Hamirpur district, where she was posted as DM.
Career profile
Chandrakala belongs to a family from the Banjara tribe, with roots in Garjanapally, Andhra Pradesh. Her father retired as a senior technician in the Fertiliser Corporation of India in Ramagundam, Andhra Pradesh.
She is a graduate in geography from Hyderabad’s Osmania University and a post-graduate in economics.
Before cracking the civil services exam in 2008, when she bagged the 409th position, Chandrakala had topped the Andhra Pradesh Group I examinations for the state’s public service commission.
Her IAS career began in what was then Allahabad, where she was posted first as a joint magistrate, and then as Chief Development Officer.
From April 2012 to March 2017, Chandrakala served as magistrate in five districts of UP, with Hamirpur being her first such posting, between 2012 and 2014.
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Working style
The viral 2014 video from the road construction site in Bulandshahr is considered a sample of Chandrakala’s reputed working style. As her postings changed from one district to another, what did not seem to change was her low tolerance for corruption and negligence.
In at least three more instances captured on camera during her tenure in Bulandshahr, Chandrakala displayed her anger at negligence and corruption by government officials. From issuing show-cause notices for a dirty stadium, to reprimanding civic officials over a sewer line project, to the construction of a pavement, she publicly threatened to book officials in a police case if public work was not done honestly.
Also in Bulandshahr, Chandrakala filed a police complaint against a man who allegedly took a ‘selfie’ with her without asking her permission.
In 2016, after being transferred to Meerut, Chandrakala reached a government school to conduct an inspection. She entered a classroom and posed questions to students about their coursework, only to be met with silence. With the students unable to show proof of learning, Chandrakala turned to the teacher who tried to explain that there was a shortage of teachers.
“Who does not have problems? Only those people talk about problems who do not want to do anything… Their (students’) entire future is dependent on you,” she was heard telling the teacher in another video.
Opposition from BJP leaders
Chandrakala’s toughness had met with opposition from local BJP leaders in Meerut. In the run-up to the 2017 state assembly elections, BJP leaders had written to the Election Commission, demanding her transfer on allegations that she was siding with the Samajwadi Party-led UP government.
Once the BJP came to power in the state under Yogi Adityanath, Chandrakala was deputed to the central government. Given her impressive work as the DM of Bijnor, making the district open defecation-free, Chandrakala was posted as an under-secretary in the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation for nearly a year.
In March 2018, however, she was brought back to her home cadre as special secretary in the secondary education department.
What CBI’s FIR states
How did an IAS officer known for her zero-tolerance policy against corruption end up being booked on charges of corruption?
The CBI, which took over the probe into the Hamirpur illegal mining case on the directions of the Allahabad High Court, says in its FIR that government servants, including Chandrakala, were “in criminal conspiracy with each other”.
They “illegally granted fresh leases, renewed existing leases and permitted obstructed period to the existing lease holders, without following the e-tendering procedure as mentioned in government of Uttar Pradesh order dated 31.05.2012 upheld by Allahabad High Court dated 20.05.2013”, the FIR said.
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