The Hindu Business Line : Row over appointment of new Tobacco Board chief

A row seems to have developed over the post of Chairman of the Tobacco Board here, with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) rejecting the proposal to appoint the present Executive Director, Mr G. Suresh Babu, to the post on the ground that he is an officer hailing from Andhra Pradesh.

It is reported that Karnataka is opposing the move to appoint an IAS officer hailing from the State to the post, complaining of the domination of AP men in the board.

The post of the Chairman has been lying vacant for several months, after the exit of Dr Dayachari.

Referring to the reported move of the PMO, Dr Y. Sivaji, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Tobacco Growers' Association and former member of the Rajya Sabha, said it was an ill-conceived one and the association would represent to the Prime Minister to reconsider the decision.

Location row

Going into the background, Dr Sivaji said that the Tobacco Board had been constituted in 1975, with its headquarters at Guntur, and it was stated specifically in Section 4 (sub-section 3) of the Act that the headquarters should be located at Guntur.

"An attempt was made by Mr Mohan Dharia, the then Commerce Minister, in the late seventies to get the Act amended in order to shift the board office from Guntur to Hyderabad. The Janata Government was then in power and the Congress, then in the Opposition, voted out the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. The move was aborted," he said.

Dr Sivaji said that Mr Dharia had taken the decision then because Guntur was too small a place for the Board to be situated and not many senior level IAS officers were willing to serve there. "But we opposed the move then. We oppose any move to shift the board's headquarters," he said.

Referring to the reported opposition to the appointment of a Telugu officer to the post of Chairman, Dr Sivaji said that he had read such reports and "in some of the reports it is stated that Mr Deve Gowda, former Prime Minister, was behind the move. But I have spoken to Mr Deve Gowda and he told me categorically that he had no such agenda. Mr Gowda made it clear to me that he only wanted a regional office of the board to be set up in Karnataka and that he was not opposed to having the headquarters at Guntur."

Dr Sivaji said the move to stall the appointment of Mr Suresh Babu to the post of Chairman was unfortunate and it would lead to complications.

Traditionally, and now too, Guntur remains the nerve-centre of tobacco trade and cultivation. As it is difficult to find many senior IAS officers willing to serve here, Telugu IAS officers belonging to the cadres of other States were posted here in the past. It is not correct to misinterpret it as AP's domination," he said.

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