A couple of years ago, JN, an NRI from Australia was mad to know how he could meet the Principal Secretary of the Odisha Urban Development Department to share a great public anxiety regarding city road construction in Puri. Many told him that Odisha bureaucrats, particularly the IAS community, are callous and horrendously arrogant and don’t listen to others unless personally close. Australian JN was aghast that the biggest democracy put the masters in the slave’s spot but did not lose spirit. In Australia, any labour-class citizen can call up or get in touch with top public officials in case of emergency or inaction by junior state functionaries.
JN got in touch with the concerned Secretary through a common friend and what followed made him proudly declare that the Indian bureaucracy is a lot more people-friendly and responsive than their Australian counterparts. Injeti Srinivas, the then Principal Secretary gave him instant appointment. JN was given more than one hour, and the problem was solved right then and there with the boss instructing the top engineer Nalini Kanta Pradhan to rush to Puri and solve the problem before placing an honest report on action taken. The issue related to urban roads being constructed above the age-old household plinths resulting in water of all quality flowing into household areas creating interior flood. The standard rule is road heights once set cannot be raised above household plinths except National Highways that run mostly away from habitation. During repair, city interior roads have to be first dug and the debris removed and then refilled to form a top of black bitumen or concrete in a very scientific manner to last long and leave people free of flooding.
Today in most cities and towns roads are just rising like mad and households going down mainly because corrupt officials and greedy contractors eat up the digging and debris-removing money and just keep piling horribly bad layers atop the damaged surfaces. The Patna High Court, on a writ petition by affected parties, came down heavily on officials, mostly engineers, municipal authorities and urban development functionaries, with extremely heavy penalty and offending strictures.
JN is a satisfied proud Indian back in Australia, but saviour Srinivas has left Odisha for good in his last phase of service. The Federal Government has placed him in two key posts as Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority and the Sports Authority of India. No wonder, prices of lifesaving drugs and equipments are falling; and the just-concluded South Asian Games in Guwahati has created history.
Most people do not seem to know how bureaucrats make a huge difference in the quality of life of citizens in any civilised state. Unfortunately, in today’s India, public officials imagine they are free to keep people warded off to work in peace only because the average Indian does not know how officials are bound to be both friendly and helping while solving common problems.
The Odisha Government today stands to lose as honest, efficient bureaucrats are ignored or declining in number due to pressure exerted on them to keep political agenda above that of people’s welfare. The ones that tow in line are retained; the best deliverers are relegated into oblivion, especially those who raise a voice against injustice and erratic planning. Odisha has a popular Chief Minister whom masses will place in the big chair for at least two more stints in the absence of any other credible party with trustworthy leaders. The CM must take some measures to place truly-efficient bureaucrats in critical positions and dislodge sycophantic machinators to insignificant positions so as to inspire the bureaucracy to improve its efficiency and ethical standards.
Right before JN, Srinivas had said to Works Secretary Pradhan, “You must bear in mind Puri is the face of Odisha. If this temple town has problems in the Nabakalebar year, the entire State would be put to shame.” Eventually, most roads in Puri like elsewhere including Bhubaneswar, did not gain much due to timid public resistance. The authorities never bother to realise that underneath roads, multiple electrical and data transfer cables apart from water supply pipes and sewerage systems are laid. The higher the road gets, more impossible it gets to repair and service these most essential facilities. In the mega cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, road heights have never been raised in centuries only because subsoil systems can be serviced with ease and age-old houses shall never be flooded with water and effluents flowing on roads.
Somehow, to the good fortune of Puri, a dynamic District Magistrate reappeared on the scene. Around this time, the Navakalebar fever was at highest temperature and the pilgrimage city was in utter disorder. Arvind Agrawal, a soft-spoken guy, was taken lightly with people saying the softy would succumb to all kinds of political pressures and hardly deliver anything. But with his hand-picked colleagues, he did historic things: cleared the entire temple surrounding ending up in wide roads to make the shrine a world-class tourist-pilgrimage location. He ordered all major roads to be built as per universal specifications with strict deadlines, and ensured law and order were restored in full text and spirit. To the relief of citizens, his Sub-Divisional Magistrate swept the city and surrounding of all branded criminals and potential miscreants to be tossed into custody. Though there was some problem with the Brahma Parivartan, the township remained fairly organised. The servitors responsible for the fiasco have been adequately condemned. But the district administration never got any accolade by the people.
The special reason for discussing Agrawal in good light is the fact that he is the person who had first provoked the Government to reform the land Registration Act of Odisha. While heading the Angul district administration in 2012, he brought to notice how land mafia rob poor ignorant people of their precious land by orchestrating legal disputes that end up in owners giving up to the wicked sharks. The Revenue Secretary then made up a robust, failsafe plan and got it duly approved by the law Department (Justice Shatrughan Poojari was the law Secretary then). The Cabinet made it law in April 2013. Unfortunately, lawyers who have no role in land sale registration, struck work and agitated for long to have the people-friendly Act repealed. They realised fairly late that the Act was good for all because it made it mandatory for vendors to satisfy Sub-Registrars by establishing Right, Title and Interest over the property before execution of deed.
Puri is truly the face of Odisha because of the famous Hindu shrines and the beautiful sea beach. The District Magistrate is now working hard to have the Swargadwar land restored by digging into all documents in hand. He has also inspired philanthropic people and charities to organise donations for setting up public goods and facilities including female toilets and rest sheds. He has come heavily against the railway authorities who are coming up with a huge structure on the hitherto green-only beach zone. All the same, people with dissent can come up and expose if the administration has been tricky in stealing fame or being praise-hungry in any manner.
The Swargadwar land issue is the biggest challenge for the administration today. Sixteen acre of sacred space is now only 0.4 acre where people with dear dead bodies suffer like in hell. The gateway to Heaven is itself dirtier and more painful than ‘Hell’ as depicted in epics of all known religions of the world.
The idea is not to praise a set of officials; the story has been inspired by a few truly people-friendly bureaucrats who make a striking difference in delivering relief to the needy and the deprived by sincerely adhering to the ‘Rule of law’.