Hailing from Chennai, IAS officer of 2008 batch, Tamil Nadu cadre, Ms. Irene Cynthia Joseph’s biggest challenge was Hindi, when she was appointed as the District Magistrate of Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindi speaking state. The transition was not an easy one but she soon overcame the issue and is so fluent in speaking Hindi now that she goes on giving extempore speeches. Making quick decisions on files written in Hindi is almost her second nature now.
HANDLING POWER LOOMS IN BURHANPUR
The seat of Mughal Empire several centuries ago, Burhanpur is the only district in Madhya Pradesh where Muslims form almost half of its entire population, which also makes it one of the most communally sensitive regions. But Ms. Joseph realized pretty soon that all the communal problems that flared in the district, happened only in certain months and the rest of the time used to pass quite easily. So she decided to solve the more grave problems first and pledged to work on communal issue later.
At one point of time, the naxal infested Burhanpur district was extremely famous for its 35,000 power looms when they existed in all their glory. But such is not the case today. now the owners as well as the weavers of these power looms are facing an extremely difficult situation owing to the economic downturn. In order to help the industry back on its feet, Ms. Joseph came to a decision and started holding conference meetings on a regular basis with all the weavers, buyers and suppliers. These meetings with the power loom owners brought her face to face with another revelation.
She realized that the district and power loom handlers were hardly educated, and made them face additional difficulties. She motivated and convinced the handlers that they should at least receive basic education to understand the working in a better manner, and to work according to the economic factors, in order to yield a good turnover at the end of the year.
TEACHERS ATTENDANCE MADE NECESAARY
The district comprises a number of government schools but in order to receive education and learn something, the teacher’s presence is necessary. This is where Burhanpur lacked. Even when the schools were open and children were sitting inside the class, the absence of the teacher made everything go in vain.
To solve the problem, Ms. Joseph decided to make the teacher’s attendance compulsory along with that of students. To ensure their presence, e-attendance of teachers was implemented at her behest. All the school teachers were provided with a special attendance application on their smartphone that could track their geographical location and time.
Burhanpur became the first district in the state to do so.
WORK FOR ANGANWADI
After covering the education of adults and youth, Ms. Joseph turned her attention to children aged between 3 to 6, leading to enhancing and developing the Anganwadis of the district. The Anganwadis too, had a poor record of attendance. So to motivate more and more little kids to come to school and receive education, Ms. Joseph realized that she had to do something which could be fun for kids and at the same time, also educate them.
After consulting with the parents and Anganwadi workers, she decided to convert the 740 Anganwadis into playschools. But this task was not as easy as it sounded. Turning an Anganwadi into a fun and funky playschool with furniture and toys required large amount of funds. To arrange those, she turned to people for help and like a boon, the local panchayat representatives and business people came forward to help with funds.
By this day, about 20,000 children in the district attend playschools for free. “The functioning of a system depends on its leader. If the leader is honest and hardworking, the subordinates are forced to behave in similar manner” said Ms. Joseph in an interview.
Ms. Irene Cynthia Joseph is a commerce graduate who did her MBA in finance from Stella Maris College, Chennai. Her husband is also an IAS officer of the Assam cadre.
