Indian civil servants enjoy immense respect in our society. Be it IPS or IAS, these officers go through rounds of tricky exams, mental and physical screenings, and rigorous training, so that they may be entrusted with overseeing our society’s functioning. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel even described the IAS as the steel frame the Indian bureaucracy rests on.
But real change in India is hard to come by, courtesy red tape, bureaucratic attitudes, and corruption; that’s why simply as a member of a larger organisation dedicated to a greater good can make you appear complacent in the eyes of a citizen who is waiting for change and progress to trickle down.
However, weve found a handful of model civil servants; they’ve not only done their part for India’s betterment, but also gone above and beyond their duties to create real, lasting change. And we will be reaping the benefits of it, long after theyre gone.
Preventing environmental degradation
Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to support his Swachh Bharat scheme, the success of such a project depends on the sincerity of the civil servants, who implement the policies and practise them in their own lives. One such is IAS officer Asheesh Singh, who converted a landfill into a city forest.
The Indore officer, appointed as Indore Municipal Corporation commissioner in 2018, led a team to clear 13 lakh metric tons of waste from a stretch of 100 acres in just six months using bio-mining techniques. He said, Bio-remediation or bio-mining is an environment-friendly technique to separate soil and recyclables, like plastic, metal, paper, cloth and other solid materials from legacy waste.
IAS officer Prasanth Nair, appointed as secretary to the Minister of State for Tourism in Kerala, too, has introduced a number of schemes addressing sanitation, namely ‘Tere Mere Beach Mein’ that tackles waste collection at Kozhikode Beach. A wildly successful programme, which offered a free plate of Malabar biryani to those who helped to clean a 14-acre pond in Koyilandy, earned him the moniker Collector Bro.
IAS officer Tukaram Mundhe has been instrumental in checking land, water, and sand mafias. Being an IAS officer, if I can’t transform systems or give them [citizens] leadership and motivation, then who else can? he said.
Increasing access to resources
Officers have also taken it upon themselves to introduce schemes that address the medical well-being of citizens. Odisha IAS officer Poma Tudu, a graduate of Lady Hardinge Medical College, is determined to give villagers in Nuapada district greater access to government facilities. This thickly-forested district is prone to animal attacks and insurgent unrest; Tudu, however, isn’t deterred.
In the same vein, IAS officer Armstrong Pame, known as Manipurs Miracle Man, has led a team to construct a 100-km-long road connecting Tusem and Tamenglong, remote villages that had been inaccessible, with Assam and Nagaland. It’s called Peoples Road, as its construction was sans government assistance.
Also working on similar initiatives are IAS officers Surendra Singh Solanki and Ritu Maheshwari. The latter is with the Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Ltd to digitise recording of electricity consumption for reducing theft and corruption. She said, People believed they could fool or manipulate me. They thought ‘what would a woman know about electricity and complex grids?’ I managed to change 1.6 lakh of the 5 lakh meters amid protests from pilfering consumers. This drastically brought down the city’s distribution losses, which were at 30 percent then.
Solanki has also forged a collaboration between Rajasthans Dungarpur district, IIT-Bombay, and Rajasthan Grameen Ajeevika Vikas Parishad to empower and train women to assemble, sell, and repair solar lamps. They sell these lamps to people in remote areas.
Checking crime and unrest
Telangana IPS officer Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagwat, now Rachakonda police commissioner, has made immense strides in curtailing human trafficking and child labour. Under his leadership, the Rachakonda police have shut 25 brothels and raided brick kilns employing children, rescuing more than 350 kids.
Then there’s IPS officer Sanjukta Parashar, known as the “Iron Lady of Assam”. Reason: her covert operations against insurgents stashing illegal arms. Her arrests of 76-odd insurgents and Bodo militants have single-handedly created a change in attitude towards women in the force.
These officers adhere to the laws they implement and perform their jobs responsibly and honestly. No wonder then that they have grown to become shining examples of how a civil servant should be.
Rhea Arora is a Staff Writer at Qrius