A WhatsApp district collector
The district collector of Bokaro has
integrated the use of WhatsApp to manage the administration of the district
There are currently 688 districts in India,
with the smallest (in terms of area) being Mahe (part of Puducherry) and the
largest being Kutch in Gujarat. Bokaro district in Jharkhand ranks at 222,
based on its size and spread. With a population of about two million, eight of
its nine administrative blocks are rural and many are Naxalite-affected.
Every district is administered by an Indian
Administrative Service (IAS) officer, who is either called a district collector
(DC), a deputy commissioner or a district magistrate (DM).
The roles and responsibilities that go with
the three designations are more or less the same.
The DC is a revenue collector as well as an
administrator. DCs are usually young officers and every service meant for the
masses falls under their jurisdiction.
A DC is, therefore, responsible for the
efficient or inefficient delivery of entitlements.
I have seen people line up at a DC’s office
with more hope than they would have of their elected legislator,
parliamentarian, sarpanch or mukhia.
Serving in a district, which is more often
than not remote, rural and underdeveloped, can either make power go to a
person’s head or present them with an opportunity to learn to be responsible
and accountable.
I have had the chance to address trainee IAS
officers in Mussoorie and talk to them about various digital tools, as well as
community radio, which can help them govern their districts better.
I have always believed that if there are
dynamic DCs who are given adequate time in a district (at least five years)
before they are transferred to another location, the entire public
administration in terms of delivery of governance and citizen services could be
far more effective than what we have today.
This perception comes from the belief that
when one is young, and handles a powerful job which one knows can bring
tremendous change, one is able to experiment with and implement innovative
ideas.
Recently, I met Rai Mahimapat Ray, the DC of
Bokaro. He is 30 and comfortable with digital devices and services.
He is on social media and is extremely active
on both Facebook and Twitter. Every evening, after office hours, he hooks up on
#Bokaro, and responds to tweets directed at him or at the administration. He
has also introduced WhatsApp into the process of monitoring, managing and
instructing block offices and other personnel.
“WhatsApp is a great tool for feedback. It
also helps in making the work collaborative, real time, responsive, accountable
and innovative,” he says.
During one of our conversations, his
attention is suddenly diverted and he starts to type on his smartphone. When he
is done, he passes his phone to me and asks me to take a look at the messages
he is responding to on WhatsApp. There are about 20 WhatsApp groups that he is
a member of. They range from MGNREGA (to manage jobs under the national rural
job guarantee scheme) to Bokaro Yojana Banao Abhiyan (for better planning of
Bokaro), from Panchayat Election 2015 to Development Bokaro, from Chandankiyari
(for managing activities in the said block) to Swachh Bokaro (to clean up the
district).
Besides these, Mahimapat tells me, a number
of groups are created almost everyday that concern an issue that has been
plaguing the community; and once the issues is resolved, the groups also
becomes inactive.
Though Mahimapat interacts with officials up
to the block level, he says his block-level staff set up their own WhatsApp
groups to manage issues at their levels. But, given that data connectivity
beyond the block level is always not reliable and penetration of smartphones is
low, Mahimapat is waiting for the Broadband For All programme (under the
Digital India initiative) to start soon so that connectivity up to the last
mile can make applications like WhatsApp more popular, effective and relevant.
He hopes this will connect the administration with citizens and help forge a better
relationship.
Source | Mint – The Wall Street Journal | 27 April 2016
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
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Khaitan
& Co
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