(f). 6th Posting - DPAP, Jhargram, Midnapore
6. My sixth posting - Project Officer, DPAP, Midnapore, Jhargram
Joining
On the FIFTH of August 1976, I joined Midnapore Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) Agency as the Project head, designated as Project Officer with headquarters at Jhargram.
About the project
DPAP was a multi-disciplinary project for drought-prone areas, sponsored by the Government of India and executed by the Agriculture Department of the Government of West Bengal. There were two other such projects in West Bengal, one in Bankura and the other in Purulia. To implement the programme, an Agency was created, as a non-firm society, in each of the districts, with the concerned District Magistrate as the Chairman and the District officers of the participating departments as its members. The Project Officer was the Member-Secretary of this Committee.
Setting up of office
There was no office or staff when I joined as the Project Officer at Jhargram. I had to build up the infrastructure from scratch. A suitable office building was not available on hire. I had to hire a big house to accommodate the office and the residence in the same building, though I was not in favour of having my dwelling on the same premises as the office. Office and residence were separated later, as soon as suitable accommodation was available, but that was much later. Fair rent for the premises, including that for the residential portion of the building, was determined by the Land Reforms wing of the Collectorate. Having occupied the premises of office-cum-residence, I appointed a retired person as the Accountant of the Agency. Next, I filled up the sanctioned posts of staff through a written test followed by an interview (For the written test, I had set the question paper myself and had personally cyclostyled it for circulation amongst the examinees). For conducting the test, I had to take the assistance of SDO's staff. I also purchased one fibre-glass-body Jeep from the manufacturer, Mahindra & Mahindra, at the DGS & D rate and recruited the driver for the same. Simultaneously, I bought furniture and equipment for the office. The office started working in full swing within six months of my joining. Of course, the officers to act as subject matter specialists, one from the Co-operation Department and the other from the Animal Husbandry Department, were available from the government much later.
Financial Arrangement & Implementation
Funds were received from the Govt as grants-in-aid and kept in the Agency's Bank A/c, operated jointly by the Project Officer and the District Magistrate as Chairman of the Agency. Schemes under the project were drawn up following the guidelines of the Govt. of India and executed by the district-level officers of the concerned departments. The Agency was to provide funds out of the grants received by it from the Govt from time to time. As the project officer, I was to coordinate and maintain close liaison with the concerned officials of different departments for the smooth implementation of the schemes and release funds when needed by the executing officers. There used to be regular meetings at the convenience of the District Magistrate to monitor the progress of work in different sectors. State Level meetings were also held in Calcutta from time to time to assess the progress and remove inter-departmental bottlenecks, wherever required. Besides, monthly reports on the progress of work were to be sent regularly to the Government. Dryland farming, minor irrigation, soil conservation, forestry, fishery, and Irrigation were the sectors that worked within the project. Accounts of the Project used to be audited by the Accountant General at the office of the Agency as well as at the offices of the executing authorities.
Relation with local SDO: Events & experience
Shyama Pada Nandy of our service was the SDO when I joined DPAP. But he left soon, and Ramsevak Bandyopadhyay of the IAS replaced him. I developed a friendly relationship with Sri Bandhopadhyay. That was Ramsevak’s first posting as an IAS officer, and he needed to learn many things. He would now and then take me along when he visited the block offices and other places in the Jhargram subdivision.
I helped him conduct the Parliamentary Election, in 1977. I recall here an incident that had occurred at that time. It was on the poll day. I was sitting with the SDO, Jhargram, in his chamber, which was functioning as the election control room. We received information that a reporter from a local newspaper Banabasi Samachar was taking photographs inside a polling booth. It was an illegal act. Asking me to stay, the SDO Ramsevak Bandyopadhyay went out. After some time, he returned holding a camera in hand. He told me he had seized the camera and would get the pictures developed. It was a film camera; the digital camera had not arrived till then. I told him, what he proposed to do, would be illegal; as per the rules, the camera reel should be exposed to light to destroy the negatives. SDO kept on insisting on developing the negatives. After much persuasion, he reluctantly did as I had advised. No sooner had he done this, than there came a call from the District Magistrate, Midnapore wanting to know from the SDO if he had seized any camera from the polling booth. Having the reply in the affirmative, the District Magistrate, in so far as I could gather from the reply of the SDO, asked him what he had done with it. SDO reported that he had exposed the negatives to sunlight. There was possibly some other query by the DM which was beyond my hearing. But I heard the SDO saying, "but Mr Das had advised me to destroy them". There ended the conversation. Mr Hirak Ghosh (since deceased) was the District Magistrate of Midnapore at that time.
Once during Ramsevak's stay in Jhargram, J. C. Sengupta, the then Additional Chief Secretary, visited Jhargram in connection with some ILO programme. Ramsevak told me later that Mr Sengupta made him accept even the cost of tea and snacks served to him during his visit. Such was the standard of honesty of these officers in those days.
Years later, when Ramsevak Bandyopadhyay was the District Magistrate of Burdwan, I was detailed by the Govt. at his request to help him to conduct the elections in the Asansol subdivision. That was 1987; I had just joined as the Deputy Secretary to the Govt. in the Commerce & Industries Department. I had then to camp in Asansol for some weeks for the conduct of the election. I left Asansol after the counting of votes was over. I must admit that Mr Bandyopadhyay was very particular about our comfort while we (I and my junior colleague Susanta Sen) stayed in Asansol. Mr Bandyopadhyay had told his officers that we were his guests and should not face any inconvenience. Sanjoy Mitra, who later became the Chief Secretary of West Bengal, was the Additional District Magistrate (General) of Burdwan at that time.
Training; Arrival, Events & Visits to historical places
During my tenure as Project Officer, I attended an all-India training programme on DPAP for a fortnight at a place called Yelwal on the outskirts of Mysore city. For this training, I flew from Calcutta via Madras (it was still not named Chennai) to Bangalore, where I halted at a hotel as it was late in the night by the time I reached there. It was the first air travel in my service life. The morning after, I boarded the tourist train, Vrindavan Express, running between Bangalore and Mysore, at Bangalore, to reach Mysore. I reached Mysore in about three hours and thence went to the University of Mysore to report for training. The organisers took me to the venue of the training. The department of Development Studies, University of Mysore, conducted the training, Government of India bore the cost.
It was an All-India level training. The Project Heads from DPAP districts all over India attended. We were three from the three projects of West Bengal. We used to have classes from morning till around 5:30 PM with a break for lunch. University professors and guest lecturers used to take the classes. In the classes, we used to have talks and deliberation on development-oriented matters, dryland farming, particular problems of drought-prone areas, and the ways to combat them.
Here, I recount an episode not connected to the training program, which touched me to a certain extent. Some girls of Mysore University had some classes near our venue for training. We used to come by them during the class break. I noticed a Tamil girl amongst them showing interest in me. She was tall, beautiful, and had a good physique. While passing by us, she would smile and often cast love glances at me. It would be a travesty of truth if I say I was not attracted (I was a little over 32 years of age at that time). But I restrained myself and ignored it; I was already married with a child. I did not want anything untoward to happen to them.
During that training, we, the trainees, were taken to the historical places of Bellur and Sravana Bellagola. Bellur and Sravana Bellagola were in the district of Hasan in the State of Karnataka. Bellur was the early capital of the Hoysala Empire. It is known for the Chennakesava temple, one of the finest examples of craftsmanship during Hoysala. When we visited the temple, we were mesmerized by its exquisite beauty. (A picture of the temple from Wikipedia is in the left panel.) But this picture hardly reflects the beauty and the artistic ornamentation on its walls and columns.
Śravaṇa Beḷlagoḷa was one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Jainism, one that had reached a peak in architectural and sculptural activity under the patronage of the Western Ganga Dynasty of Talakad. There was a gigantic statue of Gomateshwara Bahubali on the top of a hillock at Sravana Bellagola. We had to climb a large number of stairs to have a look at it. (A picture of the statue from Wikipedia is on the left panel).
End of Training: My feeling about the place & its people
We stayed at Mysore only for two weeks to complete our course. Even during this short period, the city and its people had earned a soft corner in my heart. I visited Mysore twice since then, once with colleagues as a part of the Bharat Darshan programme of the IAS induction training course and later again with the family. Details of these visits are available on the Travelogue page of this website.
Deployment for emergency flood relief work
During my tenure as Project Officer, DPAP, there was a devastating flood in August 1978. The flood affected most of the districts of South Bengal and Calcutta. The State Govt deployed officers from different places to combat the flood situation. In the Midnapore district, Tamluk and Ghatal subdivisions were the worst affected. I was detailed for flood duty at Tamluk with Swapan Chakrabarti, an IAS officer, posted as the Settlement Officer, Midnapore. We moved together. Reaching Tamluk was difficult; we could make it with great effort. We started in the morning and arrived at Tamluk in the evening via Contai. Usually, it would take a couple of hours to reach Tamluk from Midnapore. Our attempt to reach Tamluk directly via Panskura had failed as the National Highway had been inaccessible after the bridge on the Damodar.
Kalyan Bagchi was the ADM, Tamluk at that time. He was a friendly man, free from ego. His wife and mother, too, were cordial and hospitable, as I found during my subsequent interactions with them.
While at Tamluk for a flood relief operation, I stayed in the house of the Subdivisional Police Officer, Kirit Sengupta, who was my batch-mate in the WBCS (he had gone for the police service), as his guest. His family was away at that time. The morning after, Kirit & I were detailed for Mecheda, a development block of the Tamluk subdivision. A piece of information had reached that the local villagers had taken shelter on the first floor of Mecheda BDO's office at Kaktia. The BDO Chittaranjan Das was in bad shape. He had been living in a sub-human condition. We left for Mecheda by boat. Waist-deep water was flowing over the road. We heard the cracking sound of collapsing houses from all around. People were calling for help and rescue. The boats were in crying need for rescue operations. We felt we should release the boat and move on foot. We did so and walked through the waist-deep water. It took longer to cover the distance of 8 km to reach BDO's office at Kaktia. We arrived in the evening and helped to distribute relief materials, from a stranded trailer, till late at night. We somehow spent the rest of the night at BDO’s office.
The ground floor of the BDO's office was underwater, and too many people had taken shelter on the first floor. BDO himself was also staying in a first-floor room. There was an unbearable stench all around due to the use of a single toilet in the office by all these people. The BDO, Mr Chittaranjan Das, was in a run-down state. We felt he would fall sick if not removed from the place at once.
Taking the BDO, Chittaranjan Das, along with us, we returned to Tamluk the following day by a stranded truck. Before leaving, the BDO had made all the arrangements for the relief and rescue of the affected people to continue in his absence. He returned to his headquarters after being refreshed by some rest and sleep at Tamluk and continued with relief work. At usual times, Chitta stayed in Tamluk with his family and attended office from there.
I stayed at Tamluk for a few more days to help in flood relief work. I returned to my headquarters after the flood when the situation somewhat normalized in Tamluk.
Role of Panchayat functionaries in flood relief
The new Panchayat functionaries who had come to power shortly before this calamity had become actively involved in relief and rescue operations. They had done a commendable job during this flood.
Re-classification of Govt. servants: a historical event
When I joined the service, the services under the Government of West Bengal were classified1 into two broad categories, Gazetted and non-Gazetted. As an officer of the West Bengal Civil Service, I was in the Gazetted Category as a Class I Officer. Matters of appointments, postings, transfers, and the leave of the Gazetted officers were published in the Official Gazette of the State Government. Gazetted officers had some exclusive privileges like the power of attestation of documents and the issue of certificates of certain kinds for the purposes like passport, residence, caste determination, etc. Gazetted officers were not required to sign attendance in the office. They were also self-drawing officers, meaning they drew their pay and allowances from the Treasury on the authorization known as a ‘Pay Slip’ issued by the Accountant General from time to time.
The State Services were, however, re-classified into Groups like A, B, C & D, later by the Left Front Govt in 1978. The Gazetted and the non-Gazetted classifications were dispensed with.2 The erstwhile Gazetted officers were re-classified into Group A and Group B. The Govt. withdrew the self-drawing powers of the Gazetted officers, though such officers enjoyed other privileges as before. The pay and allowances of the erstwhile Gazetted officers were started being drawn in the Common Establishment Bill with other officials. Later, the Govt. had made it obligatory for Gazetted officers to sign attendance registers.
Leaving the Project
I left the Agency on April 27, 1979, after being appointed as the Subdivisional Officer, Jhargram. Trinath Krishna Sinha, a 1970-batch WBCS (Executive) Officer, succeeded me.
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 This section has been added as a record of an important event in the administration of the govt. of West Bengal at the relevant time.2In September 1978 vide GO No. 10606-F dated 25.09.1978 of the Govt. of West Bengal.