The Rajasthan enablers'

Tomes can be written about our bureaucracy’s mastery at maintaining status quo. Ask a government servant how to delay work and he can instantly produce a thousand ideas.

But thankfully, things are changing. A young generation of civil servants is slowly ushering in a new culture of governance.

With refreshing change in their attitude and functioning they are trying their best to make the system efficient, effective and people-friendly.

Arguably one of the better-administered states Rajasthan has seen a plenty of such officers in recent times. Their no-nonsense approach and innovative ideas to help people have made them popular among masses. Meet the “enablers”.

Dr Samit Sharma
Age:  45
Field: Healthcare
Who doesn’t know the pioneer of free generic medicine scheme in Rajasthan who appeared on Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate? His initiative as district collector in Chittorgarh caught the fancy of chief minister Ashok Gehlot and soon it was implemented across the state.

Later, even medical tests were conducted free of cost. The scheme made healthcare accessible and affordable for millions of poor people. It was a universal scheme with no income or domicile restriction.

Even people from neighbouring states came in droves to avail benefit of this scheme. His new initiative as director the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme is a mobile app to monitor field workers and officers. The app would upload the photo of a worker or officer and trace location, making it compulsory for them to go to field instead of updating records from home.

The app would feed the location even offline. He featured in Aamir Khan’s programme Satyamev Jayate and his fans created a Facebook page in his name.

P.C. Kishan
Age: 41
Field: Child care
He literally wiped out child trafficking from Dungarpur within a year. After learning about tragic deaths of children in BT cotton fields in Gujarat from exposure to pesticides and snake bite, apart from malnourishment and ill-treatment, he decided to stop it.

He roped in tribal chiefs for better monitoring ensuring that every vehicle passing through the district was searched, saving hundreds of children during surprise checks. To compensate for loss of income, Vagad Bandhu project was launched ensuring regular income and benefits under the MGNREGA and welfare schemes.

He also authored a prize-winning book for bringing the Vagadi-speaking tribal children in southern Rajasthan to the mainstream with good education and helping them learn Hindi and English.

Later, as district collector in Sriganganagar, he opened libraries in the name of famous scientists in abandoned government buildings at downtrodden areas.

Jitendra Kumar Soni
Age: 35
Field: Child care
It was December 2015. A young IAS officer who comes from a humble background was moved by the sight of poor kids coming barefoot to schools. He instantly took them to the market and bought shoes. Later, he asked gram panchayats and municipalities in the district to collect information on the number of kids without shoes.

The survey revealed that there were around 25,000 such kids. In the first week of January 2016, he launched “Charan Paduka” scheme with the aim of providing shoes to all 25,000 kids. The collector also decided that students will be provided shoes every year.

The scheme was instantly a hit. Donations started pouring from everywhere. It is now a Rajasthan government scheme and will be replicated in all districts.

Gaurav Goyal
Age: 33
Field: Child care
The “toy bank” is a unique initiative by Ajmer district collector Gaurav Goyal, through which the district administration will collect toys from donors and distribute them among students in state aanganwadis, primary schools and those who cannot afford them.  

A mobile app to facilitate collection of toys was also launched. Any donor can access the app to donate toys in this bank. The donors will receive a letter of appreciation by the administration.

The initiative has got a good response in the city, motivating banks, educational institutions and NGOs to come forward in the toy collection drive.

In December, Mr Gaurav was also awarded “Scroll of Honour” by the Prime Minister for encouraging cashless transactions post demonetisation.

Ajmer was among the top five districts in the country. The biggest achievement he made was to activate 3.5 lakh RuPay cards out of five lakh cards in rural areas.

Surendra Kumar Solanki
Age: 56
Field: Child care
He is not exactly young, but his concern and effort for an orphan girl is quite impressive. The Dungarpur collector adopted Chhaya Pargi after learning that the girl had lost her parents early and went on to live with her paternal uncle and aunt, but ran away from there after her aunt attempted to kill her with a farm tool.

“Chhaya is the administration’s daughter now,” he said while ensuring that the formalities for enrolling Ms Chhaya into an English-medium school were taken care of.  He even appointed a local guardian for her, Abha Mehta, principal of District Institute of Education and Training while he himself took responsibility of her educational and personal expenses.

Rohit Gupta
Age: 35
Field: Sanitation
Long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a call for clean India, this young Indian Administrative Service officer had already made it his mission. In just two years as a district collector, he transformed Churu, one of the dirtiest cites, to an open defecation-free city.

He replicated the same feat in two other districts by involving people and instilling in them a sense of pride for having a toilet through slogans like “chokho Churu” (clean Churu) and “futro Pali” (beautiful Pali) and a signboard bearing the slogans outside homes having toilets.

He used a mechanism of coloured dots for better monitoring. A green dot meant there was no open defecation (or 100% ODF), a yellow dot meant a village was on its way to getting to green, and a red dot meant a village plagued by open defecation.

Grant would be given only when 100% ODF achieved. The same logo is printed on ration card and health prescription forms. It says make a list of schoolchildren who defecate in the open.

A board outside his office listed all villages in the district and showed a coloured dot next to the name of the village. It helped motivate the local public representatives when they came to meet him. No one liked a red dot before their village while green dot carried incentives.

Inderjeet Singh
Age: 33
Field: Women empowerment
On Civil Service Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conferred an award to Dungarpur district collector Surendra Kumar Solanki in the category of “best innovation for implementation of solar lamp project” in Dungarpur district.

However, this idea originally belonged to Indrajeet Singh who conceived and implemented it first as a district collector in Dungarpur and now in Chittorgarh where he is currently posted.

The solar lamp initiative empowered local women, from the most backward blocks of Rajasthan, to earn their livelihoods by becoming solar entrepreneurs.

Last year, with the help of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, members of 150 women self-help groups were trained and mentored to locally assemble and sell the lamps.

They were also trained to provide repair and regular maintenance to the lamps by setting up solar shops. Later, a team of 500 women joined the band and made a record income of '75 lakh by marketing 60,000 solar lamps in a few months.

Arti Dogra
Age: 38
Field: Women and girl child care and sanitation
As district collector of Bikaner, the 2013-batch officer launched three successful campaigns. First was “Mission Against Anaemia” in which over one lakh women were tracked and treated for anaemia in less than six months. The mission was launched following deaths of a number of pregnant women in the district. Soon, 20 lakh iron folic acid (IFA) tablets were distributed and use of IFA syrup jumped 188%.

Her second novel initiative was “Doctors for Daughters” under the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign. Doctors adopted underprivileged and orphaned girls and took responsibility for their uniforms and stationery in addition to medical expenses.

And, the third was making 200 panchayats open defecation-free through the Banko Bikaner campaign. It was the first district to monitor permanent toilets through an “outcome tracker software”. But the real catch was the nigrani committee spearheaded by small groups of children with a common agenda — to seek and shame those from the village who defecate in the open.

Dr Ravi Kumar Surpur
Age: 40
Field: Stopping student suicide
“Watch the rivers flow… See squirrels and colourful butterflies and the chirping of birds… don’t miss anything… go trek a hill… Play games because life is beautiful. What sounds like a poem was actually a gentle nudge from Kota’s district collector Dr Ravi Kumar Surpur, who was worried after a spate of student suicides in India’s coaching hub for IITs and AIIMs.

He had cracked the whip on coaching institutes and made it mandatory to have a day off from studies besides a “no study, fun day”.

But after reading many suicide notes, the MBBS-turned-bureaucrat realised that at the heart of the problem was parental pressure forcing children to take the extreme step.

So, in another letter, he made an emotional appeal to parents asking them to “not force their expectations and dreams on their children and let them do what they want and are able to do.”

Tejaswini Gautam
Age: 28
Field: Women’s rights
She is an Indian Police Service officer performing street plays to raise awareness about women’s rights. The ASP of Jaipur’s Bassi area, Tejaswini Gautam, has performed more than 50 plays in Rajasthan to educate people on the issue. She started with 11 constables to perform with her, and now there are 16. After the play is over, Ms Tejaswini talks to women in the audience and tries to understand their problems and situation better.

She also holds auditions for more actors. The initiative by her highlights the importance of change and awareness in society along with stronger action from the authorities on crimes against women. It also shows the way for raising sensitivity among police in relation to such cases.

Sanjay Agrawal
Age: 49
Field: Elderly care
The police is generally seen as a ruthless face of the State, but there is also a softer side, as shown by Jaipur police’s concerns for senior citizens.  After a spate of crime against “lonely” senior citizens, Jaipur police commissioner Sanjay Agarwal took an initiative to provide support system to them asking local police officer and beat constables to regularly visit elderly people and share their phone number too.

A mobile app was also launched where elderly people could register themselves and seek any kind of help.