Experience to work with Member of Parliament

During Exposure Camps - Govt Schools, Haryana

As a socially responsible person, I do read books and articles which help me understand the complexity of development sector. During one of such activity, I came across an article by Mr Sankar Dutta (founding Member of PRADAN). One of his statement has transformed my thoughts. He elaborately suggested that all these NGOs present in the world are playing a role of catalyst in the development sector as the main doer of development should be Government. If the government start doing their work efficiently the relevance of NGO will automatically come down. This lines stuck in my head forever and had made me take a certain life-changing action.

I am currently working as a SPARC Associate to Member of Parliament Dushyant Chautala from past 10 months. I feel that if you're really keen on improving the life of others, making a bigger impact on the society then it will be quite more fruitful in working with the government rather than in an NGO. Without disappointing me, these last 10 months have taught me so much and also gave me a platform to improve the life of others. With the support of my associated MP. I  took many promising projects in Hisar district of Haryana. Prior to joining this fellowship, I always had a dream of building a Model village. A villager which will have all the basic facilities which one gets in cities. Reconstruct the villages of so that it may be as easy for anyone to live in them as it is supposed to be in the cities. A village which gets transformed into models for others. To my fortune, Hon’ble Member of Parliament is also keen on creating such model village. He has adopted 3 villages under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojna (SAGY). He then gave me a full authority to carry out all the development work.  It started from doing a baseline survey to creating a village development plan, from conducting a gram chaupal to interacting with ministries. This task has taught me in and out of the implementation of all the schemes. I have so far tied up with more than 25 departments to leverage benefits from government schemes to make these 3 village a model village. With persistent follow up and coordination, I could able to pump in more than 3  crores of funds in these villages in such a short time. I cannot endure that these are now transformed into model villages but I can proudly say that these villages are developing holistically very fast compared to most of the villages of the region.

During my course of the fellowship, I took up around 7 developmental projects in Hisar so far. These projects belong to Livelihood, Education, Health and Environment. In livelihood, I took up 2 projects. I have seen that many youths of Hisar who are doing basic courses to get the blue collar job are left unemployed even after completing the course. Through data, I got to know that around 80 percent of these youth don't get a job within 3 months after completing the course. To solve this problem, I organized a Job fair wherein I invited 20 companies to Hisar to directly hire these qualified youth. That event became a mega-successful event and on a single day, 3540 people got a job. This has happened for the first time in Haryana. With the success of this event, Haryana Government then took this idea and did similar job fair in many other districts.

In education, I assimilated that the students of Haryana, especially Hisar, are quite urbane and unexposed to the current world.They lack in most essential skill i.e Computer and English because of which they face a lot of challenge in working out of state. To work on this issue, I organized an exposure camps for the Government Schools Students. I invited 20 volunteers from top institute to work in 10 Government schools of  Hisar. The idea behind this camp is to provide them with a starting platform to learn basic computer and English and to expose them to various career path. A total of 1000 students took part in this camp. The program went quite well and we were able to start computer and English classes in these 10 schools.We also took these 1000 students to parliament and shown them the discussion of the lok sabha.

Other than this program, I carried out tree plantation drive, placed libraries in all the government schools, transformed 7 health centres by installing health check-up units in these centres. Through this program, I could able to carry out various Development projects with the support of the government. I suggest to the people who are interested in development sector should also ponder upon such opportunities wherein one can work in collaboration with the government to bring a bigger change in the society.

Digitizing Government Offices for Improving Execution: Notes from Hisar, Haryana

The current government has launched a variety of schemes for the development of poor and rural communities. An expansive marketing strategy based on an adroit usage of social media has made the common man aware of these schemes. While every government frames policies after serious contemplation, the real challenge lies in their implementation. An increase in allocation of funds towards realization of a scheme’s goals has to be complemented by an attitudinal shift in the officers responsible for implementing them.

In my current capacity as a SPARC fellow to a Member of Parliament I have been spectating on how a policy takes root on the ground and it doesn’t make for a pleasant viewing.

Here, I would like to cite an example for ‘exhibiting’ the malaise. In Rampur(a village in my MPs constituency) the Sarpanch wanted to build community toilets near the Panchayat Bhavan. He wrote a letter on his letterhead and gave it to the Gram secretary. The Secretary evaluated the case and forwarded it to the Junior Engineer, who prepared an estimate and passed it to the Block Development Officer, (BDO). He again evaluated the proposal and sent it to the Swacch Bharat Mission Nodal officer, SBM – NO who transferred the document to the Additional Deputy Commissioner.

Finally, on his approval, an amount of Rupees 2 lacs was sanctioned, and it took a year to construct just three toilets.

One can see the complexity of the process which is further compounded by the utilization of pen-and-paper for recording the proceedings. A survey conducted by a Maharashtra Cadre IAS officer Virendra Singh to document the reasons behind delays in processing official requests gave astonishing results. According to his study, an average document gets photocopied 19 times, 80 % of today’s information is paper-based and almost half of the officer’s time is spent on handling paper/data entry. The average search time for any document is 18 mins and some documents are never found.

The study concluded that the District Administrator’s office functions inefficiently in comparison to any private company’s office.

To tackle the problem, digitise National Informatics Centre (NIC) Delhi has developed an innovative tool. It is called the E-office Management System and is being run in a mission mode under the National E-Governance Plan (NeGP). It is a single product which can be used across all departments and digitize all government offices.Its benefits include enhancing transparency, increasing accountability, assuring data security and data integrity, and transforming the work culture in government offices. It intends to promote innovation by energizing the staff and relieving them from cumbersome tasks.

This tool is being used in almost all the central government offices. However, out of 707 districts, it is operational only in 35 districts and they have seen startling results through its utilization

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The irony of the situation is that despite being created by a government department, other wings are reluctant to use it. The reason why this software hasn’t been adopted pan-India is because of the mind-set of the officers. It grates with their traditional style of working and learning how to use it seems to be a burdensome proposition.

Having seen the ills that arise from inordinate delays I believe that this tool can improve the implementation of various government schemes and urge the all district administrators to embrace it wholeheartedly.

Development: Through the Government Policies

I always used to believe that carrying out any work by government system is next to impossible. I surmise that the government structure is too complex to bring about any change on the ground. However, this belief got shattered when I got an opportunity to work on the ground with Hon’ble Member of Parliament Mr Dushyant Chautala.

            The journey of this thought change begins when I landed in Hisar, Haryana constituency of Hon’ble M.P around 2 months ago. Hisar is one of those typical districts of Haryana and has all the traits of Haryanvi. It is one of the oldest districts and is 3^rd largest in Haryana.  In my first meeting with him, He shared his thought about development. He said that the true development of a region only happens with the development of the villages. His statement “Till the time farmer of this country is poor, this country will be poor” got stuck in my mind. He then directed me to focus on developing village by creating model village under Sansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana. He said that one model village inspires 50 other surrounding villages. It was a dream project for me. I always thought of doing this. Although the miracle happens when I begin my work.

            As per the plan, I visited a village called Bhiwani Rohilla which is adopted under SAGY. I spent a week inspecting various issues of the village. I interacted with the community and discussed their problems at length. After the detailed knowledge of the village, I prepare the Village Development in accordance with the SAGY guidelines. VDP is prepared in consultation with the community as I believe that community involvement is the most crucial element to carry out any developmental work. Based upon the VDP, all the concern officials were called in the village to discuss the issues and solution for it. This has happened for the first time in Hisar that 46 A-class officers came to that village. The VDP was categorised into 4 categories i.e Human Development, Economic Development, Environmental Development and Infrastructure Development. There was total 68 task got finalised, proceedings are prepared and then instructions is sent to respective officers.

            I begin meeting various officers and discusses the execution of the tasks. Things started moving very fast. Till date around 14 camps has been set up in last 1 month. Doctors are now visiting on weekly basis, Veterinary Surgeon is coming every Tuesday, awareness camp for digital banking, farmer cooperatives, ITI training, Animal Insurance happens. Dress Designing course for women is started in the village where 60 women are getting trained in tailoring. Survey of the village has been carried out by Executive Engineer (XEN) wherein plan to develop infrastructure work of worth rupees 1 crore is prepared. It includes construction of street, repair of panchayat bhavan, Animal Hospital, renovation of ponds and construction of the park. There is also 8 lakhs worth of MNREGA work is finalised. All this activity happens in last one month and now I can proudly say that village is developing. This all was carried under one or the other government schemes. A facebook page is made especially to track the work done in the village.

            There are 70 plus central government schemes and around 40 haryana govt schemes. There are lot of money is invested by the government. I just feel that there is disconnect between the deprived people and the government policies. This SPARC fellowship is giving me the best platform to fill that gap and catalyse the development at grassroots. I look forward to utilize the existing government schemes to bring much bigger impact on ground.