Read the Part 1, here.
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear; the brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.
#1. Vinod Rai
A 1972 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer, started his career as a sub-collector of Thrissur district and became a Comptroller & Auditor General of India. Rai who pursued Masters in Economics from University of Delhi and Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, is known for his uncanny ability to cut through bureaucracy.
Rai came into lime light for his compilation of audit reports of irregularities in Delhi Common Wealth Games 2010, CoalGate allocation & allocation of 2G spectrum licenses. Forbes quoted Rai as one of the bad-ass IAS officer of rarest breed of civil servants who knows how to get work done in the bureaucracy. Throughout his service as an IAS officer, he made sure that everything that came under his ambit was dealt with honesty and perfection.
#2. Ashok Khemka
He is an IAS officer who got transferred highest number of times i.e. 45 times in 23 years. This speaks volumes about him. Khemka, who pursued Masters in Economics and is also an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, grabbed attention of the entire nation when he cancelled Robert Vadra’s illegal mutation deal with DLF in a Congress ruled state while the Congress party was in power at centre as well.
Haryana State Government has intentionally kept him away from important government roles. Being honest to his role, he has kept a check on all the wrong doings and scams in each department that he was posted to and brought it to public notice. Many false chargesheets & departmental inquires have been initiated against Khemka to discourage him . He was conferred ‘The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust Commendation on Public Works’ in 2009 & The S R Jindal Prize for ‘Crusader against Corruption’ in 2011.
#3. Durga Shakti Nagpal
This 31 year old IAS officer truly stood to her name & unearthed the nexus of ‘Sand Mafias’ in Greater Noida, UP. A Punjab cadre IAS officer, who married Abhishek Singh, also an IAS officer of UP cadre & later on moved to Gautam Budh Nagar district of UP, where she was posted as ‘Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)’.
Nagpal demolished an illegal mosque that was under construction in Kadalpur village, for which the UP government arm-twisted & suspended her on false charges. However she was reinstated later by CM Akhilesh Yadav after facing ire from national media & bureaucrat circles.
#4. Uma Shankar
This Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer became the reason for defeat of CM J. Jayalalithaa in polls of 1996. He unearthed the Cremation Shed scam as additional collector of Madurai. He didn’t stop there. Further, during the regime of new government, he continued his stir to catch hold of corruption. During his stint as Joint Vigilance Commissioner, he probed Marans and the DMK patriarch’s kin for which he faced suspension too.
During his tenure as District Collector, he made Tiruvarur the first e-district in India, introducing transparent and technology enabled administration for the public. This project got an international attention. Uma Shankar is among the few pioneers in India who initiated the e-governance project which later got implemented across India.
#5. Rajni Sekhri Sibal
Rajni, a Haryana cadre IAS officer who bluntly says NO when it comes to corruption & this very habit of her led to her frequent transfers. But what she did next will make every one of you spellbound. Her act of a ‘4 mtr cloth’ led to imprisonment of former CM Om Prakash Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala and 51 others. Chautala & other were involved in a scam in which interview scores of 3,200 Junior Basic Training (JBT) teachers in 1999-2000 were manipulated to give jobs to those who had paid for it.
When Rajni was asked to take 5% of bribe money & change the result list by CM’s associates & his son, Rajni denied to do so, as a result of which she was transferred. After receiving her transfer orders, the first thing she did was, she wrapped the steel almirah with the actual list of results lying inside, with four-metre-long cloth and bandages, making it impossible for anyone to open the almirah and temper with the list. Even her successor wasn’t able to do much with tampering of files, as he knew that this would lead him into troubled waters.
That’s all for this time. We will keep expanding our *Badass Bureaucrats* list and present it before you. But feel free to help us out. There are a lot of unsung heroes and we need to know them all!
