Thinking out of the box
The
fourth gfiles Governance Awards feted officers and administrators from
across the country for their achievements in the field of governance.
These were the people whose work touched the lives of millions and
impacted them positively
by Narendra Kaushik
Union
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu says governance is like ‘intel’
(informal for intelligence), not so visible yet most important for any
government, department and organisation. Prabhu would know. He is in the
Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who defines good governance as
“putting people at the centre of development process” and never tires of
stressing pro-people and pro-active governance. Besides, the minister
has a mandate to make Indian Railways an engine of the Indian growth
story through good governance.
The
Union Minister for Mines and Steel, Narendra Singh Tomar, credits the
coal auction, which helped the Modi government rustle up Rs. 4 lakh
crore, for establishment of a transparent system. He also attributes the
large number of disbursals under MUDRA (Micro Units Development and
Refinance Agency Bank) to good governance by bankers and bureaucrats.
Born 
An
Dr 
Dr
In 
A
Tamil Nadu-cadre IAS officer of the 2004 batch, Anshul Mishra is a
postgraduate in Political Science from JNU. He ensured fairness and
transparency in administration by establishing an Information
Centre/Complaint Cell at the Collectorate as Collector of Madurai in
2012. The online complaint registration system ensured speedy and
qualitative disposal of grievances, enabling people to track the status
and also reduced repeat grievances considerably.
An
A
1986-batch IAS officer of the Jammu & Kashmir cadre, Rakesh Kumar
Gupta has had a distinguished career. He served as Chief Vigilance
Officer, National Consumer Cooperative Corporation (Government of
J&K) and Principal Secretary to the Governor (Government of
J&K), among other positions. As CEO and J&K State Election
Commissioner, he handled the challenging job of conducting elections in
the state in a peaceful manner and computerised the electoral rolls in
urdu, using unicode software. 
A
1981-batch IPS officer, Meeran Chadha Borwankar is the second woman IPS
officer of Maharashtra, the first woman IPS officer to lead the Mumbai
Crime Branch, the first woman Superintendent of Police (Aurangabad and
Satara districts) and Commissioner of Police (Pune) in Maharashtra. Born
in Gurdaspur, Punjab, she did her postgraduation from DAV College,
Jalandhar. Later, she also studied Policy Analysis in Law Enforcement at
the University of Minnesota, USA. 
Ten 
In
Bihar 
The
The
Post
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Ram
They
say that crime is usually a step ahead of the law. Rajendra Sadashiv
Nikalje aka Chhota Rajan was certainly ahead of the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) when he was in their custody, stationed in the
investigation chamber in the organisation’s headquarters. Now, Chhota
Rajan is a dream catch (it is said that Ajit Doval, the 70-year-old
National Security Adviser, was the brains behind his arrest, having told
some people he was in touch with the Indonesian authorities a few days
before the news broke) for an investigation agency. When an
international gangster is nabbed, a complete dossier is immediately
readied for the interrogation. But the CBI was not equipped to
interrogate him (who ordered that the agency should carry out the
interrogation has not been disclosed). Sources say that Chhota Rajan
realised in no time that his interrogators were novices regarding the
international underworld. So, one day, during his interrogation, he
bluntly told the CBI men that they were not competent enough to
interrogate him and he would only speak to senior Intelligence Bureau
(IB) officials with domain knowledge of global crime. The CBI officials
did not want to call the Mumbai cops as they were very harsh with the
gangster when they interacted with him in the first phase. The second
problem was that he could not be sent to Mumbai. Now Chhota Rajan is
housed in Tihar Jail Barrack No 2.
Rarely
do street protest leaders turn into good administrators on taking hold
of the reins of government. There are umpteen examples to cite from the
recent past…Karpoori Thakur, Devi Lal, Mamata Banerjee…and now there’s
Arvind Kejriwal. That the government of Delhi is functioning at all is a
wonder. There’s mayhem and discontent in the corridors of power.
Kejriwal does less work than he creates news. He has reportedly created a
coterie of a few senior administrative officers who are managing to run
the government with the help of junior officers. IAS officers in Delhi
are aghast and unhappy. AAP MLAs have become openly demanding and, like
any other political outfit, want their supporters to be accommodated
within the government and sarkari social benefits to be doled out
to them. Second, the tone and tenor of the ministers and MLAs have
become aggressive. Naturally, most senior officers of the AGMUT cadre
are to be seen in the corridors of North Block. Insiders reveal that the
Delhi bureaucracy is not left with much that is constructive or career
promoting. Generally, AGMUT-cadre officers are known to stay more in
Delhi than any other place, but now they are all looking to go anywhere
else. There should be harmonious relations between the bureaucracy and
the Chief Minister. Kejriwal should mend his ways fast.
Public
Sector Undertakings (PSUs) are crucial for any government but it’s very
difficult to understand their complete network and they are dealt with
by related domain ministries. The Modi government has a massive
restructuring and disinvestment plan for PSUs. Approximately 50 of them
can sustain themselves, the rest are like the burden on Atlas’
shoulders. But the government is cautious regarding those PSUs that need
a Chairman and Managing Director (CMD). It appears there is a crisis
of competent and worthy people to appoint. The National Mineral
Development Corporation, the Steel Authority of India and NTPC are
examples of important PSUs which are headless. These are massive PSUs
with budgets equalling the national budgets of some of the tiny European
countries. Functioning without a head or led by an officer with
additional charge affects the performance of the organisation. Major
policy decisions are not being taken. And this impact travels down the
line in the organisation. Though CMDs for NMDC and SAIL have been
selected by the PESB, their files are awaiting approval for months.
Nothing can be done to speed it up. The PM cannot be directly approached
for this. Sorry status quo.
Narendra
Modi’s efforts to bring in Foreign Direct Investment are bearing fruit
but the big-ticket companies are waiting and watching regarding
Vodafone’s alleged tax evasion. Vodafone is embroiled in a tax dispute
over its purchase of Hutchison Essar Telecom services in April 2007.
The transaction involved purchase of assets of an Indian company so the
transaction, or part thereof, was liable to be taxed in India, according
to the tax department.