The people of Chakia Tehsil of Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh are very happy with one IAS officer. He is SDM Prem Prakash Meena, who came to the district six months ago.

Ever since Mr. Meena took charge, he has launched aggressive action against land mafia and freed many government-owned land from illegal encroachments. And the best part is, he is taking steps to make good use of these lands by building playgrounds and panchayat offices on them.

Indian Masterminds spoke to Mr. Meena about his drive against land mafia and his many welfare initiatives.

REMOVING ILLEGAL ENCROACHMENTS

Mr. Meena, a 2018-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has launched an aggressive drive against illegal encroachment.

Recently, he freed a land which was occupied by encroachers for more than 20 years, located in Muzaffarpur under Chakia area. Now the ground is being prepared for a mini stadium, which will include track, volleyball court, and a ground for kabaddi.

BUILDING PLAYGROUNDS

In another such campaign, a new ‘fallow land’ in Muzaffarpur village was freed from encroachment and reserved for playground. Araji number 353 is registered as new fallow land.For decades, 0.092 hectares of land were illegally occupied by some people of the village. But now it has been freed and converted into a playground. It will soon have stadium-like facilities.

Mr. Meena said, “Many promising children in the village have played kabaddi and other sports like karate and volleyball at the national level. In view of this, efforts are being made that in the next 15-20 days, a track is built and the work of making a playground will start soon. After the playground is ready, the talents of more children will come out and it will make them tough on every front, mental as well as physical.”

He further said that even after giving several notices to the encroachers to vacate the land, they did not move. So, the administration had to remove them using police force.

OTHER INITIATIVES

Mr. Meena, who came to Chandauli after being transferred from Hathras about 6 months ago, became popular in Chakia with the ‘Nyay Aapke Dwar’ initiative. It involves government officials going door to door to help people and sort out their problems as well as official matters on the spot. This welfare initiative has made the administration more responsive towards people’s grievances.

Apart from this, keeping in view the interest of the general public and children, a library is being constructed in Nagar Panchayat Chakia at a cost of 10 lakhs, which is to be completed in the next two months. This will be the first public library in Chandauli district.

He also conducts surprise inspections at the paddy purchasing centers for redressal of complaints regarding the purchase of paddy. A parking lot has also been built in the area at a cost of 10 lakhs.

MORE ABOUT THE OFFICER

Mr. Prem Prakash Meena is originally from Rajasthan. He was earlier SDM in Basti and Hathras districts. He secured AIR 102 in UPSC 2017. He earlier worked in Russia but returned to India in 2015 and joined civil services.

He is very active on social media and has a lot of followers. He has been running his YouTube channel since 2021 to help rural students who cannot afford expensive coaching institutes. He has around 36,000 subscribers and more than 200 videos in his YouTube Channel.