‘Bureaucrats have to adjust to the political mindset’

FIRST STIRRINGS | arun l bongirwar
‘Bureaucrats have to adjust to the political mindset’

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A former Chief Secretary recalls how the seeds of innovative people’s schemes were planted at the outset of his career
I HAIL from a family of bureaucrats. My father was an IAS officer in Maharashtra and my grandfather was a school inspector. I began my career as Super Numerary Assistant Collector in Ratnagiri district collectorate. A first posting in Ratnagiri was rare. In my very first posting I learned how the Konkan people interacted with the government machinery. They were very meticulous. Initially, they would list their grievances or problems. After failing to evoke a response from the administration, they would send a Red Letter, a letter written in red ink, a reminder.
Three or four months into my assignment, the Koyna earthquake struck. It wreaked havoc in the tehsils of Chiplun in Ratnagiri district and also the neighbouring Satara and Patan tehsils. My immediate bosses were the Konkan Division Commissioner, GA Sharma, and the Ratnagiri district Collector, Mandlekar.

Milestones
In my long career, I worked with several Chief Ministers. I was at the helm of the State administration when the political administration changed. But I did not encounter problems of adjustment with any Chief Minister because all of them had a vision of doing something good for Maharashtra. I was Secretary to Congress Chief Minister Sudhakarrao Naik, to Shiv Sena Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, his Sena successor, Narayan Rane, Congress CM Vilasrao Deshmukh. As a Divisional Commissioner, you are in direct contact with the Chief Minister. I was Pune Divisional Commissioner when Sharad Pawar was Chief Minister, I was Aurangabad Divisional Commissioner when Shankarrao Chavan was Chief Minister.

One of the biggest challenges was communication. The government relied only on faxes. To make a long-distance call, we had to book a trunk call as there was no direct connection with the state administrative headquarters. If you sent one person to the nearest administrative headquarters just to seek a directive or help, you had to wait for him to return. But the calamity made us work through the circumstances. I learnt team work.
Sharma told me to leave for Mumbai and arrange for transport of bread. It was my first interaction with the Relief and Rehabilitation Secretary, MW Desai. I was struck by his ability to take spot decisions.
It was then I realized the power and speed of the administrative machinery. Sharma was posted in Mumbai. He promptly called up Modern Bakery and arranged to send three truckloads of bread to Chiplun. In such circumstances, the test of the government lies in taking quick and effective decisions.
After that I was posted as Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) at Dahanu in Thane district. The adivasis were an exploited lot. It was incumbent on the government officers to determine the price of the trees upon which the adivasis depended for their livelihood. Often, young trees were felled or the ignorant tribals were paid less for their produce. The government’s aim was to ensure the tribals got the due price.
There was food scarcity. Thane district was known for its paddy. During my stint there, I learned of rampant smuggling of rice to neighbouring states like Gujarat. One night, my team and I laid a trap for these rice smugglers at Manor and nabbed a huge consignment of rice on its way to Gujarat. My next posting was at Akola. The posting after that, in 1978, as District Collector of undivided Osmanabad and Latur districts was challenging. It gave me great satisfaction to see the smiles on the faces of the people after the problem of drinking water shortage was tackled. The government approved laying of temporary water supply pipes until permanent ones were laid. The expenditure for the district exceeded the total for the rest of the districts of Marathwada region. During my subsequent posting in Aurangabad as Revenue Commissioner in 1986, I got a chance to make a real impact on the government’s functioning. I was asked to head a team of District Collectors to look into the administration’s problems. In six months or so we submitted our report. A major recommendation was creation of the post of Assistant District Collector, which you now see in every district. It helped a lot in reducing the workload of the District Collector.
My second most influential study report was on why there are very few IAS aspirants in Maharashtra. There was a major debate in the Maharashtra Assembly over why there were very few Maharashtrian officers in the State cadre. In my time, out of the 15 officers who entered the State cadre, only Pandit Kavde, Lalit Doshi, S Habeebullah, Shailaja Chandra and I were from Maharashtra.

When God distributed wisdom He did not give Biharis or South Indians more, He distributed it equally to one and all. The opportunities are there.

The government set up a committee headed by me and comprising MLAs like Nitin Raut, Fauzia Khan (both Ministers in the Ashok Chavan Cabinet), Subhash Desai and Ashok Modak. We visited divisional headquarters like Nagpur, Aurangabad, Ratnagiri and Mumbai.
Our field visits were widely publicized; it was then that youngsters got to know not just about the IAS but also about other cadres like the IPS, the Forest Service, the Foreign Service, the financial Services and so on. It was not just ignorance, there were also doubts like “Should I appear for the UPSC exam”, “will I pass it”, “will I get the Maharashtra cadre”. The last five years have seen an increase in the number of aspirants from Maharashtra. Awareness has spread in rural Maharashtra. In Mumbai, the youth tends to opt for more cushy private sector jobs. But, overall, the trend has reversed. There are good institutes like Chanakya Mandal of Avinash Dharmadhikari, CD Deshmukh institute in Thane, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA) in Pune and State Institute for Administrative Careers in Mumbai.

Three or four months into my assignment, the Koyna earthquake struck. It wreaked havoc in the tehsils of Chiplun in Ratnagiri district.

One of the major problems for the youth in Maharashtra was that books for the UPSC exam were not readily available and were also costly. So we recommended that YASHADA digitize them and make them available online. It is said the administration is overrun with Bihari and South Indian officers. But when God distributed wisdom He did not give Biharis or South Indians more, He distributed it equally to one and all. The opportunities are there, one only has to let go of negative mindsets.
When I became Chief Secretary, I introduced another innovative concept – that of Lokshahi Din under which major heads of departments under the collectorate jointly listened to public grievances once a month. It struck me that, in rural parts of the State, government officials often neglected or simply ignored public grievances. Or, if the official was corrupt, he would tend to ignore the complaint until his palm was greased. There was direct interaction between the person and the government official, with no one to check what had happened. It depended on the attitude of the officer.
I SUGGESTED that heads of major departments like the District Collector, Superintendent of Police, and Executive Engineers of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and the Public Works Department (PWD) should hear grievances once a month. When people complained about a certain official not solving their problem, and in front of his superiors, he had to take action.
The whole thing set off a chain reaction, because of the presence of the District Collector at such janata durbars. The Collector kept a tab on the developments and reviewed progress at the next meeting. Enthused by its success, the Chief Minister also picked up the idea and started the Lokshahi Din in Mantralaya. But, as time passed, our survey found that almost 70-80 per cent of those who came for these Lokshahi Dins were government officials seeking transfers, promotions or postings. The rest had genuine problems that they wanted the Mantralaya mandarins to solve.
To stop this flow of people to Mantralaya with their grievances, I started the Palak Sachiv (Guardian Secretary) concept at the district level. A bureaucrat who had previously worked in a particular district would be made its Guardian Secretary. He would try to resolve problems at the local level. Since he had colleagues in Mantralaya, he could take up pending issues and get them resolved. This left the District Collector free to tackle other pressing issues.
Despite technological advances, the bureaucracy and administration has remained more or less the same. I was Chief Secretary from May 1999 till January 2001. My style of functioning was different, as is the case with my successors like the current incumbent, JP Dange.
The Maharashtra bureaucracy has remained more or less insulated from any change of political guard in the State. That is because politicians across the ideological spectrum know the bureaucrats’ style of functioning. Ultimately, what matters is integrity and merit.
Bureaucrats have to adjust to the mindset of the political establishment ruling the State. I do not subscribe to the view that Maharashtra has lagged in terms of progress because of lack of bureaucrats or any other reason. The image of Maharashtra in Delhi is not that of a quiet, docile State. It has devised many path-breaking schemes like the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), which has now been adopted by the Centre and rechristened as NREGS. And Maharashtra’s share in allocation of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds is greater than any other State.

(As told to Prashant Hamine)