Good tenure is a precious blessing for a civil servant

Isn’t it ironical that a district so close to state headquarters is beset with so many challenges. Even assured water supply was not there in district headquarters and as if these problems or challenges were not enough, Project Tiger was a fresh addition to that list. Chenchu tribe that was recording negative growth in population was facing the brunt of tigers in the Rajiv Gandhi national sanctuary in the Nallamalai forest area. These challenges welcomed me to Mahbubnagar district and I was happy to move there as Collector by end February of 1990. So in my seventh year I was the first one in my batch to hold district charge

Oftentimes, due to unfortunate reasons not attributable to the officer concerned that his-her transfer happens. Sometimes people presiding over the affairs of the state, think on our behalf and think of a ‘better’ posting all the same causing hardship to the officer only. I was extremely lucky that I spent three years fruitfully at Parvathipuram. Every time I was travelling to Hyderabad for official work I could visit Ananda Vanam in Bhimli and spend time with Pujya Guruji and also with my parents in Visakhapatnam. This was the closest place of posting that I did in my career geographically speaking to my place of upbringing. I then moved to Guntur as Joint collector. I had nice experience of becoming subordinate to my former deputy director in LBS Academy Mussoorie. I drove to that place in my Premier Padmini car with my wife and toddler son Aditya. Noticed that Guntur town was a big town and was buzzling with lot of people.

I will take few minutes to remind about the conversation that I was blessed to have with Jillellamudi Amma after my success at the combined civil services examination. Amma showered a palmful of white jasmines on my shaven head and blessed me. She enquired from me about when it was likely that I can go to Guntur as Collector. She went further and said that it would be good to see me as Collector at Guntur. I was speechless and went into silence, sinking into her loving divine presence. She even fed me a few fistfulls of curd rice as a token of her love and affection. This conversation with Amma in 1983 flashed on my inner eye and I was sure that her words brought me to Guntur. I cannot narrate all those details here which cut short my stay in Guntur. One evening Sri Rosaiah called me to the R and B guesthouse and informs me about my impending transfer to Mahabubnagar. So to fulfill Amma‘s prophecy, I went as JC to Guntur and held charge of Collector Guntur for over three weeks.

Mahabubnagar district was one of the closest to state headquarters. It is commonly believed in the district that many government servants operated from Hyderabad. South Central Railways facilitated the employees to go to Mahbubnagar in the morning and return to Hyderabad by night travelling by Tungabhadra express. This district was second largest in the state and was divided into 64 mandals and four revenue subdivisions. Rural mandals were very poorly equipped with services of power and water. It is a well spread out district and is features in all the lists of concerns and challenges. If one looks at communally sensitive areas or areas with problems of untouchability or places with left-wing extremism or villages caught in cycle of poverty due to drought etcetera, this district invariably finds a mention there. Isn’t it ironical that a district so close to state headquarters is beset with so many challenges. Even assured water supply was not there in district headquarters and as if these problems or challenges were not enough, Project Tiger was a fresh addition to that list. Chenchu tribe that was recording negative growth in population was facing the brunt of tigers in the Rajiv Gandhi national sanctuary in the Nallamalai forest area. These challenges welcomed me to Mahbubnagar district and I was happy to move there as Collector by end February of 1990. So in my seventh year I was the first one in my batch to hold district charge.

Government of Andhra Pradesh, launched ‘Special Area Programme’(SAP) to tackle the problem of left wing extremism. This program was to be implemented in all the mandals affected by that problem. Shri T Gopalrao a senior officer, holding a Secretary level post was coordinating this programme in my district. Sri Gopala Rao was like an elder brother and soon we struck an excellent working relationship. We spoke to each other on the phone and he suggested to jointly tour all the mandals and rejuvenate the Panchayat institutions. The launch of this programme happened at Achampet. Prior to the launch of SAP under auspices of the minister of district a meeting was convened with elected MLAs of that area. All of them flew in rage at me, for preparing this SAP without consulting them. I was not able to convince them and was at a loss of words. Sri Gopala Rao came to my rescue by taking the entire blame for not consulting MLAs. I was dumbfounded with this care from my illustrious senior. The entire steam was let off by the MLAs and they readily agreed to Sri Gopal Rao‘s suggestion of going to general body meetings of all affected mandala praja parishads. Both of us traversed the district in a continuous manner and we halted for the nights in some school buildings avoiding far -off guest houses. There was so much for me to learn from Sri Gopal Rao when he addressed the MPP general body or spoke to youth in the villages.

I continued this habit of attending general body meetings of the MPPs and that gave me an excellent opportunity to understand the demands of the public representatives at cutting edge and also to assess the efficiency of my senior colleagues at the district level. Problems in the far flung Amrabad upper plateau were my natural priority to tackle. Groundwater was not tapped in these areas and only monsoon assisted crops were not creating surplus in the families. Also took steps to get hamlets notified as scheduled areas as revenue villages had lot of non-tribal population. Fresh from my ITDA experience, drove project staff in Mannanur, who reluctantly started moving. Encouraged horticulture in tribal mandals supplying good plant material.

In those tours to these far-flung areas, I saw the dormancy in the behaviour of youth. There were large number of school and college dropouts in the villages. Presence of this youth was a threat to many sarpanches. So the ‘Gram sabha’ that was stipulated under the Jawahar Rojgar Yojana (JRY) were not being regularly conducted by the Sarpanches. Due to the threats from extremists, many public representatives stopped giving advance notice of visiting to their constituencies. All this meant grievance redressal came to a halt in the rural pockets. To galvanise the youth, we launched ‘youth component plan’ in the district. We earmarked 10% of funds made available under Drought Prone Area Programme(DPAP) to be spent through registered youth clubs. Secretary, Nehru Yuvak Kendra, Mr Khaleemullah was so dynamic and played such a crucial role in this programme. We also sensitised youth to the government initiatives in the district. We hoped to nurture next generation leadership through this special exposure. Evaluation done by Council for Social Development showed encouraging results from this initiative. Youth were weaned away from antisocial activities also. Tree plantation was taken up by youth clubs with these funds under DPAP.