At times, decisions taken in the heat of the moment hit the bulls’ eye, while long-drawn-out office meetings to sort out an issue only aggravate it further. This is what happened a few years ago in the hill town of Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand.
Mr. Mangesh Ghildiyal, the IAS officer posted there, went to the Government’s Girl Inter-College on an inspection, only to find that it was sorely missing the science teacher. Ghildiyal did not spend too much time on the problem; he asked his wife Ms. Usha if she could double up as a science teacher.
The wife agreed. And for the next two and a half years, the IAS officer’s wife Ms. Usha continued teaching in the school.
This is just one of the many examples of Mr. Ghildiyal’s resourcefulness. Subsequently, he got posting as district collector of Tehri, but the stories of this solution-oriented bureaucrats started spreading out. It, therefore, did not come as surprise to many when very recently he was handpicked and inducted in the Prime Minister’s Office, at a fairly young age of 34.
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Ghildiyal made light the school incidents. “It was a regular inspection and when I found out that the students are facing trouble, I sent my wife to teach them. This benefitted the students in overall academics,” he said modestly.
GIVING A NEW FACE TO THE KEDARNATH TEMPLE
The massive floods in Uttarakhand in 2013, causing unprecedented damage and loss of life in the Kedarnath region, is still fresh in peoples’ minds. After the 2004 Tsunami, it’s counted as the biggest tragedy to have struck India- with over 5,000 people feared dead in Kedarnath. The recently deceased actor Sushant Singh Rajput played a pivotal role in the film `Kedarnath’, which highlighted this tragedy.
But a big credit to reconstruction work of the area in and around Kedarnath goes to the IAS officer Mangesh Ghildiyal. The crucial construction of protective walls around the Saraswati and Mandakini rivers were carried out during his tenure here.
The 2013 Kedarnath floods are among the worst natural disasters the country suffered after the 2004 Tsunami; more than 5,500 people were presumed dead by the heavy rainfall, after several cloudbursts in the area.
During his stint as the DM of Rudraprayag in 2017, he was made in charge of the reconstruction work which was to be done in Kedarnath where the massive destruction was caused. In his presence, the construction of protective walls of the Saraswati and Mandakini river was completed in the set duration.
Mr. Ghildiyal has famous for his style of work, which includes surprise field visits. During the Kedarnath ‘yatra’ of 2019, he dressed as a tourist (even putting on a tourist hat) and mingled with the crowd to see the arrangements for himself. Here, he discovered two water-tanks with not a drop of water in them and promptly recommended the suspension of two engineers of the Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited the reconstruction site twice and took stock of the ongoing process through video conferencing. Perhaps it was during these interactions that Mr. Ghildiyal’s work was noticed, leading to his posting in the PMO.
SURPRISE RAID IN COVID CARE CENTER
Fond of making surprise checks, and often in disguise, Mr. Ghildiyal made one such visit to the Sursingdhar Covide Centre in Uttarakhand. To his shock, he discovered major regulations and safety measures were being flouted with impunity. So much so that instead of providing healthy food to the patients, the officials were feeding them with junk items like ‘chole bhature’. Not surprisingly, after Mr Ghildiyal’s unannounced visit and a rebuke to the canteen manager and other officials, the COVID centre was put on the correct path.
