I am for streamlining working of all govt offices, says DC KK Yadav

Deepkamal Kaur

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 29

Even as the district administration has been doing its bit in handling public issues, there are several glitches in the delivery of services. Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav, in a conversation with Tribune reporter Deepkamal Kaur, talks about various steps he has undertaken to streamline the working of various offices and how he keep a vigil on the staff. He also discusses works undertaken by him in his nearly two-year tenure in the district and his plans to resolve problems of residents.

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How do you monitor work in your offices? What are you doing to make offices agent-free?

I have got 70 CCTV cameras installed in the complex and I keep monitoring them on my office screen all the time. I have made provision of feedback forms at tehsils. I make random calls on phone numbers of applicants coming on receipts issued from fard kendras and Suwidha Centre token slips. To check against agents, I have got a help-desk set up at Suwidha Centre, but I know there is a problem still in the DTO office. I am soon going to put up posters at Suwidha Centre and will be giving out my number to the people, asking them to send me their complaint on SMSes or my email.

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You have been holding regular monthly review meetings of all departments. Which department do you think has been doing very good and which is performing badly?

Education and health departments have been doing a very good work and making utilisation of all grants coming to them in the right way. The Public Health Department, too, has been doing a good job as they have constructed 3,200 toilets against the total target of 29,000 for the district in a fairly short time. The departments which need to be pulled up every time are those where engineering works are involved, including the PWD, Municipal Corporation, sewage board etc. For the same reason, I ask them to upload pictures of status of ongoing projects on the IWDMS, an internal, government portal.

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The edistrict project has been more of an inconvenience to the public rather than Suwidha as the waiting time for some RTS services has stretched to three months. When do the people expect to get some relief?

The problem is with the networking gateway. But it will be gone once 142 Sewa Kendras across the district start functioning around the first week of July. We have 32 counters at one place now, which will go up to 500 counters. A private company has already been roped in for the project. We have installed the hardware on our part. They have hired their staff and are currently imparting them three months’ training before all the 212 services covered under the RTS get started under the project.

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Recently, the parking contractor had also started levying higher than the fixed amount. Have you pulled them up?

Yes, when it came to my notice, I got it checked. The contractor was playing smart by handing out slips from the courts complex booklet. Even the District and Sessions Judge took up the matter and asked me to get it stopped. We ensured it the very next day that the fleecing of the visitors gets stopped immediately.

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The old-age home being run by the Red Cross Society is not in a good state owing to which the facility is lying under-utilised. Why is not the condition of the home being improved?

We got an estimate made and found that Rs 67 lakh is required to run it properly. We are still thinking on this one. However, we have made small efforts to improve the school for the Deaf wherein we are taking the services of Dr Bowry, an ENT specialist. We are even working out to shift the mentally challenged adults from Prayas School to another centre.

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So far residents have only seen three paintings on the pillars of the BMC Chowk flyover under the City Beautification project which you are a part of. Why is it lying held up?

The MC has already cleared the Rs 20-crore project under which 35 roads of the city are to be relaid end to end with proper footpaths of inter-locking tiles, installation of road furniture and signages. We got three pillars painted. The work on the rest we are handing over to various colleges. Students would plan and make graffiti on the walls of the flyover pillars around their colleges. The MC would pay up for the costs, including paints. I have also got enforced a fine of Rs 50,000 from the MC against those found defacing public property.

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Your views on elections regarding District Planning Committee (DPC).

The elections for the members from the rural areas had been held. Polls from the councillors of the Municipal Corporation and committees could not be held. This is because a notification for forming Bilga Nagar Panchayat came late. Elections to this Nagar Panchayat would be organised before May 15. Once councillors are formed here, we can go ahead with the elections and complete the quorum for the DPC.

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You have not been very media savvy. You share little on your own about the works that you undertake. Why so?

A: I have taken many initiatives from the backend which people won’t even know. Joining this office, I first started working on improving the condition of rooms of various officers and also the facilities for the visitors. I also got 1.5 lakh files, lying stacked up unnecessarily, disposed off. Having done that, I rationalised the staff, shifting the clerks from one department to another. My office has been running with just 45 per cent of even the sanctioned strength. There were 235 pending cases under my District Collector office, of which only 32 are pending now. As many as 3,200 files had been lying pending in the office dak. The number has now gone down to 275. It will go down further as our eoffice project took off this month and will be fully implemented shortly.

I got the biometric attendance system installed in my office last year. For the same reason, when the DCs across the state conducted surprise checks in the morning on Thursday, they found several cases of absenteeism. There was none in our district, for I am in the habit of issuing showcause notices on the basis of machine records to the staff on a daily basis to make them regular.