Last week was spent in making several trips to the nerve center of government activities in Bangalore - the MS Building, which is conveniently housed adjacent to the famed Vidhan Soudha. Here in the labyrinths of numerous entry gates, floors and corridors you will find the tentacles of what is a humongous State govt machinery.
Almost 17 years back i was here, surrendering my Govt job offer as a Gazetted Probationary officer and at that point i had felt that i had turned my back to this building once and for all. But strange are the ways of the world and i found myself frequent here albeit in a different role.
I was making presentations on several topics to the Karnataka Evaluation Authority which is the nodal agency apprising many govt schemes, programs and implementations. In a way it acts like a mirror to the Govt on its activities and helps it being effective.
In the process of making presentations to a panel of senior officers drawn from various dept on our approach plan & methodology in carrying out third party consultation services I had dug deep into subject matters ranging from Village development Scheme (Suvarna Grama Yojane), Land development & cultivation Program (Suvarna Bhoomi Yojane), Apiculture development scheme, Oil Palm Development, Culture & Heritage preservation.
While each of these is a vast subject that would need several reams even for a summary description and coverage, my point of this blog article is to emphasize the following
So let’s spare a thought to what is commonly a flogging stock.
Almost 17 years back i was here, surrendering my Govt job offer as a Gazetted Probationary officer and at that point i had felt that i had turned my back to this building once and for all. But strange are the ways of the world and i found myself frequent here albeit in a different role.
I was making presentations on several topics to the Karnataka Evaluation Authority which is the nodal agency apprising many govt schemes, programs and implementations. In a way it acts like a mirror to the Govt on its activities and helps it being effective.
In the process of making presentations to a panel of senior officers drawn from various dept on our approach plan & methodology in carrying out third party consultation services I had dug deep into subject matters ranging from Village development Scheme (Suvarna Grama Yojane), Land development & cultivation Program (Suvarna Bhoomi Yojane), Apiculture development scheme, Oil Palm Development, Culture & Heritage preservation.
While each of these is a vast subject that would need several reams even for a summary description and coverage, my point of this blog article is to emphasize the following
- Govt schemes in their right earnestness seek to touch the lives of people who are the farthest from the mainstream. Implemented properly this can bring qualitative change to the remotest corner of the country where poor & marginal farmers still live substandard lives
- For all the criticisms the Govt attracts, the sheer arch of its involvement spanning public policy making, implementation & administration is staggering. The issues on hand are complex and there are no simple answers (contrary to many of the media news channels like us to believe )
- Many a times the Govt has to choose between the devil & the deep sea. Either way its damned for e.g., Scaling up Palm oil cultivation and production is urgently need of the hour to bridge the yawning gap between edible oil consumption and availability in this country. Palm Oil cultivation generates 4 times the yield as conventional crops and is suited for Indian agro climatic conditions. However it is ecologically destructive as countries like Indonesia have found the hard way. The international price situation is also volatile and Govt intervention in procurement through price fixing mechanisms has backfired in the past. But Govt cannot sit back & watch as the supply gap is only widening.
So let’s spare a thought to what is commonly a flogging stock.
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