Accountability of a people’s servant

It was my 3rd visit to Krishi Mahotsav today. It was at Maithan, which meant I went down around 200 meters in terms of altitude, thus it was very warm there. Initially, I was sitting in shade, but my buddy sun wanted to see me, although I did not and thus began the game of hide and seek. Whenever a patch of my hand was under sun, I would move my chair a little towards left. In no time, I was almost stepping over the chair of old man sitting next to me, thus there was no left left! So I got rid of chair and came close to what we all become after death – soil! Although the sun chased me down there on ground ttoo, but now I was more absorbed in the conversation that was going on between the adhikari’s and the farmers. Farmers complained that adhikari’s were listening so much but there was none who was even taking down the suggestions. The speaking adhikari, dude from Horticulture department pointed to another adhikari Mr. Tamta sitting next to him saying that he was writing, seeing that the poor Mr. Tamta started opened a register kept on table, I hoped at least then he had started writing. Everybody was saying that unless there is something done on these suggestions, there is no use of such fancy events as ‘Sarkar Kisan Ke Dwar’.

Then came the golden idea in my head. I grabbed the mike, and in presence of Pradhan Ji, senior members of village, the chief guest, who was a wise farmer and ex-armyman (which explains why is he hardworking and smart farmer) from the same village and the adhikari’s, I said, “Why don’t’ we all give two months of time to the adhikari’s and ask them to send a written report to Pradhan Ji which will give brief on all the activities that have done on the suggestions”. I felt like telling the adhikari, “listen dude, deal is simple, if you belive in every word you speak today, just write it, sign it and give today’s date.” This changed the faces of adhikari’s. Spontaneously, in front of public, they could not say or do much other than nodding in yes, as it was under normal circumstance, the ideal thing. And why should not. When I work at a private company, my boss does ask me question like, ‘Rajeev, when can we hope to finish this’ or ‘where are we on that research task’. People in private sector have to give weekly reports. And in private sector, less number of people have their stakes. But here, 1 billion people are the bosses of the government adhikari’s, 1 billion people have their stakes in the adhikari’s work. These government adhikari’s are ideally the people’s servants. They work for government and the government is ‘for the’, ‘by the’ and ‘of the’ people. In fact Nehru mentioned on becoming the Prime Minister that he was happy to be the first servant of the people of free India. So, all government officers and employees should give a written promise when they assure to deliver something, and should give at least a monthly report on where they are. Else, flyovers and highways will continue to get constructed till eternity and we will never get to drive. New hospitals will continue to get erected, but people will also continue to die pre-mature death because of lack of medical facilities.