Through his initiative Nyay Apke Dwar, IAS officer Prem Prakash Meena is successfully resolving people’s problems in record time. In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Meena shared how he has been implementing this initiative to address rural people’s problems and redress their grievances.
LAW AND ORDER ISSUES
The 2018-batch IAS officer, Mr. Prem Prakash Meena, is a Joint Magistrate in Chakia of Chandauli district in Uttar Pradesh. Before his posting in Chandauli, he was posted in Basti and Hathras districts. The officer started the Nyay Apke Dwar initiative in Basti where he was posted in one of the country’s largest sub-division called Harraiya.
“There was a lot law and order issues there, because public problems were not getting resolved through the administrative machinery on a regular basis,” he said.
When he joined, it took him 15 days to understand the root cause of the law and order problems. He understood that 90-95% of the issues were related to property and land disputes.
“The other thing which I could understand was that the dispute starts because the administrative machinery has not been responsive enough to resolve those issues in a proper administrative way,” he informed.
NYAY APKE DWAR
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, the officer started the Nyay Apke Dwar initiative. He himself went to the disputed places and tried to solve the problems before they escalated. “It was my personal realisation that many cases were pending from past 10-20 years just because an official visit was needed to speed up the process. However, it could be solved in just 20-30 minutes by going to that place and calling a meeting of the relevant stakeholders in your presence,” Mr. Meena said.
People get exhausted by long pending disputes, and they also end up spending a lot of money and time on them. “That’s when I thought that, instead of calling people to tehsil or to my office, how about I start visiting those places and look into the issues,” said the officer.
This initiative was first started in Basti and then introduced in Hathras and Chandauli as well.
BENEFITS OF THE INITIATIVE
Mr. Meena shares that this initiative solved two purposes. One, his entire machinery, be it police, health or education department, became super responsive because they knew that if they didn’t respond quickly and in a fair manner, then, the officer himself will come and take action.
The other positive development was that, through this initiative, they were able to resolve long pending cases in a short span of time. “Things were not same earlier, cases were just being registered in a file and no action was being taken by the administration,” he revealed.
“Nyay Apke Dwar initiative is being implemented by going door to door and getting people’s issues resolved on the ground and not in just files and papers. It has garnered good response not only in Chandauli, but in Basti and Hathras as well,” the officer said.
He further informed that in his first posting in Harraiya tehsil, murder was a regular affair because of property disputes. However, once Nyay Apke Dwar scheme was initiated, the number of murders came down drastically. “This happened because people started believing in the district administration. They could see that the administration has finally started responding, visiting their place and resolving their issues on the spot,” he said.
