Chief Officer’s Chief Experiences

I just completed my assignment as Chief Officer, Municipal council, Warora and the last one month has been a fulfilling experience to begin with. To be honest I was apprehensive of how I’ll go about it. It was my first independent charge. No experience of file work. First time I’ll be the boss of an organization with around 100+ employees. Ofcourse as part of training attachments in district I had been to various offices and seen first-hand how the head of office functions. How the file is moved. How to deal with visitors. How to tackle toughnuts etc. But seeing is not doing no?

But this one month of Urban Governance experience has been invaluable. This is the only time me as an IAS will be holding the charge of a Class B (Population > 40000) or Class A (Population > 1 lakh) Municipal Council (later after the Collectorship charge, an IAS becomes Commissioner of a much bigger Municipal Corporation). This one month of CO experience will be helpful once one becomes Collector, who is the Dy Director of Municipal administration to whom all the Chief Officers of Nagar Palikas report to. The Collector can overturn the decisions of Municipal council and hence has all the hold on Municipal governance except ofcourse the Municipal corporations (population > 3 lakhs)  for which there is separate line of command and control.

Some of the major learnings and realisations are as follows:

• It’s not the complexity per se, but the volume of work – Usually its not the complexity of work, but the magnitude of the same which can be daunting. The variety of work, the amount of work, the many different problems and complaints by citizens, the visitors, the meetings to attend in district HQs and in Divisional HQs etc take all the time. For the last one month, literally each day passed without me knowing how quickly the day passed. So then, how we deal with this? Either you’ve to be super-efficient and always on toes or you can delegate it or put in place the proper systems. Or you can do all of these and be a rockstar. Its not always a single solution that’s the answer, but combination of all the relevant domain specific interventions. Nonetheless, this assignment gave me a sneek peek into the kind of busy life of a CEO, Zilla Parishad or Collector. 

• Not seen is not done – you give an instruction and don’t follow it up. Consider that work is not done. You need to have effective monitoring mechanism. How you devise it, it’s upto you.

• Little bit of planning will go a long way – have a plan for everyday, every week, every month and for the entire tenure. It’ll bring clarity, purpose and peace.

• Take sometime to read materials related to your charge – It can be an Act, Rules, Government Resolution (GR), reports, news articles, op-eds etc. They are necessary.

• Dream and have a pet project – routine work ie files, visitors, meetings, inspections, reports etc will happen anyways. But challenge yourself to something big, something worth doing. Its what you will remember the most and give you satisfaction. Getting something done in Government is tough. The various government depts, agencies, file work etc takes lot of time and energy. However the kick one gets after accomplishing something is the stuff of bureaucracy folklore and the print and TV media.

• Keep your eyes and ears open to suggestions and ideas – the single use plastic surprise inspection was suggested and even egged on by one staff. Eventually I acted on his suggestion.

Following are few things I did in last one month:

• Pending Property Tax Collection – we made teams of tax collectors and sent them daily for collection. The Warora Municipal council has a decent record in property tax collection. So the marginal rate of tax collection wasn’t huge. But on an average the Nagar Parishad fund was swelling by 60-70K Rs daily.

• Camp for clearing documentation problems of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) beneficiaries – PMAY (Urban) is one toughnut because of issues like ownerships document problems, encroachment, lease, manpower, funding etc. nonetheless I did what I could. Wrote a letter to VP & CEO MHADA for easing the funding issues.

• Weekly Bazar shifting – this one is notable. The weekly Sunday market is housed along the main city road, causing inconvenience to many. An alternate place is already assigned for that. Execution was pending. Took all the preparatory steps like minor repairs of the marketplace, meeting of all stakeholders, announcements etc. This will happen coming Sunday and I’m finger crossed.

• Nagar Parishad Library makeover – got it painted and flooring done. Usually the senior citizens and few students come over there to study. The library is in the Garden and a nice cozy place for newspaper reading.

• Drinking water Project’s TS related – Technical Sanction of the project is stuck because of compliance and coordination issues (Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran, Irrigation dept & NP). Used some personal contacts to get it going. It has gained traction. Little more pulling and pushing needed.

• Building by-laws – made it mandatory for the applicants seeking Building Plan permission to submit Form of Supervision (certificate from an Engineer, Architect, Supervisor that he/she will be responsible if construction is deviated from the approved plan)  as per the Rules. Did surprise inspection of few constructions and found violations and non-compliance with building plan. Ordered immediate ban on construction

• Single Use plastic surprise inspection – I took all the HODs with me and went on a plastic raid. We searched the entire market, street vendors, bakery shops etc. First time we collected some Rs 17K fine. Second time we planned well and took on the wholesalers, distributors apart from regular shops. It was successful and collected Rs 30K fine

• Talked to private Go-rakshan samiti to take care of the stray cattle – we catch the stray cattle, we provide the place, we provide fodder and water and they maintain the place

• Distributed Home compost bins to the NP councillors and urged them to adopt home composting

• Disposing of petty complaints, field visits – field visits were eye openers literally. The actual written complaints hide many things. Once you go to the spot and inquire, you uncover many things.

• Loads of filework

Overall it was a big positive experience. The trust, hope and confidence people repose in IAS was evident right from the first day to the last day in the office. And I did my part to uphold that. Yes, a little bit more planning, a lil more reading, a lil more followup, some more field visits would have had a higher marginal difference. Will do that in my next charge ie BDO. So after a month experience in Urban Governance, I’m eagerly looking forward for a stint in Rural development & social sector. Fingers crossed!!