Highlander’s Plainspeak: An Administrative Rede

Preface

I joined the Indian Administrative Service for necessary livelihood after having lost all hope of a secure job in academia and having no sustainable alternative. Once in Service I tried to serve with sincerity in whichever wing of administration I was posted. My experiences were largely exciting, spurring me to innovate in order to squeeze more into every professional minute and grab every possible public service opportunity. Occasional pinpricks and difficulties dotted the decades of service which required bluntness or implacability on my part. These took an emotional toll, but strengthened me in many visible and invisible ways. After 33 years of active service, I was liberated on 30 June 2016.

I wanted to spend my time after retirement in quiet study of ancient, oriental philosophical literature, which has inspired and sustained me since my very formative days. I bought a flat in a village close to my native place in Uttarakhand to fulfil my desire. I had no pending familial or personal financial liabilities to be discharged and the pension was more than enough to keep body and soul quite well together. A few well-wishers, however, persisted for months that I should write an account of my eventful administrative life. The Highlander’s Plainspeak: An Administrative Rede is born from their implacability. Definitely this book need not be viewed as my autobiography as that would necessarily involve deeper self-examination to present introspective perspectives. At best it is a limited narrative containing some events which I feel were important in my administrative career.

The book provides glimpses of my early life, tracking my education and skills grounding from childhood onwards. My background differed markedly from those who had joined the civil service with me, but came handy in manifold and unusual ways in public service. Those who saw the first draft asked me to elaborate on my early life. However, I have not listened to their voices to maintain the administrative strength of this book. Thus, it quite swiftly goes on to recount how an accidental administrator learnt on the job, while persistently endeavouring to deliver timely and outcome-oriented public service at every professional rung, with reform, systematisation and simplification as the bulwarks. Notably, it seeks to bring out with factual experiences that if the administrator’s eye is unblinkingly fixed on public interest, a natural corollary is gaining the public’s voluntary recognition and appreciation in abundance.

This strengthens and firewalls the intrepid public servant against veste interests, malafide and hierarchical pressures, all of which could a derail a budding career and cast a dark shadow on family life as well it looks into the genesis and philosophy of development interventions fo The book contains experiences in the important posts held by me Independence. Efforts are also to show how the system rewards and motivate but also punishes and bruises. sometimes without rhyme or reas have taken place in various fields of administration after India gained Misunderstandings with seniors, contemporaries and friends can be comm and at times vicious. Without any defamatory intent, the narratives thus foc interests, land grabbers, industrialists, colleagues in bureaucracy, those in the squarely on facts while drawing out some unusual experiences involving vested political arena and the public at large.I held a number of significant assignments in the State and Centre experiences provide insights with a wide angle in dealing with a spectrum of Governments. The descriptions of desk jobs and field-level hands-on opportunities and challenges in delivering public service. Some of these find resonance even with those who have joined IAS or other civil services a very different or recent milieu. The narratives span across the nitty-gritty of survey and settlement, general and revenue (land) administration, to how got exposed to the vast fields of rural development, Panchayat Raj and decentralized planning. I worked to transform agriculture and allied sectors Odisha with missionary zeal. Indian systems of medicine, and education particularly of deprived ST&SC communities, were also taken up with vigou that brooked no compromises. Communally-charged ST&SC development OBC and Minority Welfare at State level, and quite sensitive matters in the highest office, the Cabinet Secretariat, at Central level, factually bring out the shades of views seen and approaches to tackle them. I learnt that taking some risks in enforcement of law and policy is productive. My hallmark right through was experimentation and innovation.

I have narrated experiences serving at different levels of hierarchy in a vertical, drawing out the different forces at play and nuances in governance of the same subject matter and themes when duties were handled from entirely different perspectives and requirements. Thus, while the most exciting job of an administrator, viz. the Collector & District Magistrate, is a uniquely decisive one at the cutting-edge of field-level governance for a young officer, as Additional Chief Secretary for Revenue and Disaster Management I got the chance to institute far-sighted and long-pending reforms in land administration and effect recovery of large chunks of government land. I found that internalising revenue administration into every pore of my being in my first posting, greatly helped me right through till my superannuation. Similarly after having supervised the upscaling of disaster management preparedness of State Governments at Central Government level, I coined the objective of ‘saving precious lives’ and went on to supervise its successful achievement when the very severe cyclone ‘Phailin’ struck the coastal districts of Odisha in October 2013. I usefully drew upon my early administrative experiences in handling unprecedented rains and flash floods as District Collector of Ganjam. I served as Chief Administrator, KBK Districts for little more than two years. It is a story of how a post considered peripheral in administrative perception could be the springboard for the head of these eight districts to contribute significantly in effectively addressing issues of under-development. In a nutshell, the book is about how I started my professional journey and its satisfying end.

My last post, Director General, Gopabandhu Academy of Administration, albeit held for a short 14 months, enabled me to sign-off from IAS in a manner consistent with and befitting a public service of 33 years. In a die-hard spirit of an emotionally-detached administrator, I tried to turn this assignment into a most productive one, planning and executing the development of 30 District Gazetteers, one for each district of Odisha, and each of around 400 pages. It was a gargantuan task of documenting in complete detail the state-of-play in cach of Odisha’s districts across its economy, society, institutions, natural resources, environment, forest and natural resources, topography, literary and fine arts. These Gazetteers were drafted, involving domain experts of eminence, and each of them went through at least two rounds of painstaking editing by me. Once the task was done, ironically, I encountered administrative hindrances which obstructed the final printing and publication of these Gazetteers.

I am not sure whether my administrative experiences would be of relevance to the new breed of administrators in Odisha or elsewhere in India. Rapid changes are taking place in all walks of life, including administration – in value systems, societal norms, personal preferences, information flows via social media, artificial intelligence and technological advancements. Anonymity is hardly regarded as a virtue by civil servants. The State is only one among many providers of services. Although I belong to the first generation in my family to have worked in the organized sector, I was fortunate enough to have handled important positions in the State and Union Governments. I believed in disciplined anonymity and opted to remain far removed from the glitter and glory of administrative life. Yet, I earned the sobriquet of ‘Terror Datt’ which despite it not having a negative context, pained me at times.

There is also no question of hurting or exposing anyone by describing events and situations even though some might sound critical. Nothing prejudicial, let alone pejorative, is intended. The book contains my perception of the truth which for others may be anecdotal or puerile. I do not claim that my perception of the administrative reality is the only accurate one as it is quite possible that either I did not understand and analyse the issue critically, dispassionately and comprehensively, or that my memory has failed me somewhere. The truth or reality as we notice it in the practical world is like a mountain standing vertically and climbers situated at different levels describing their positions differently and relatively.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my senior colleague and dear friend J.K Mohapatra under whose leadership as Chief Secretary I felt privileged to work book and provided numerous invaluable inputs including title of the book. 1 He has been kind and concerned enough to go through the first draft of this am also thankful to Anupam Bose (former Deputy Director, Agriculture Sahadeb Sahu (former Additional Commissioner, Commercial Taxes). Dr. A.B Hota (Director, ST&SCRTI), Dhirendra Kumar Das (former Senior Consultan Special Cell, R&DM Department), Kamal Lochan Mishra (former General Manager, OSDMA), Dr. R.B. Singh (former Special Secretary, Planning & Coordination Department) and C.R. Satpathy (former District Planning Officer, Ganjam; all of whom not only supported me when I held charge of the office concerned, but also took the pain to go through the relevant parts of this book and offered factual and observational comments. I have no words that could measure the affection and regard I feel for my family. My siblings, who have lived a life quite like mine in fundamentals albeit in different professional walks, have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me at every turn and stage. Finally, I thank Amit Garg of Gyan Publishing, New Delhi for the book to get published

Errors, likely to be plenty, remain singularly mine. I apologize for my failure to those who wanted me to recount my administrative experiences f they do not now find me as having been equal to this task.

08.10.2019

Dr. Taradat