Salem is a small district in Tamil Nadu and it had a glorious transformation owing to the numerous initiatives taken by its then collector, Ms. Rohini Bidari. She also bags the honor of being Salem’s first female collector. Currently posted as the Deputy Secretary of Higher Education in the Government of India, Ms. Rohini elaborated on the various initiatives taken by her to develop Salem, in an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds.
‘MY SALEM’ APP
Ms. Rohini believes that keeping in touch with people and listening to their grievances first hand helps in understanding and resolving their issues faster. And what’s better than directly contacting someone on social media? So she came up with ‘My Salem’ app where people could register their grievances, and she would studiously analyze them on a daily basis. Special section for grievances was dedicated to differently-abled, widows, and transgender. The app also helped the administration in receiving direct feedback. She also made her mobile number public and received grievances directly.
“Administration is about being people-centric. Whatever we do should ultimately benefit them, so we’ve always focused on implementing schemes that are beneficial to residents” says Ms. Rohini.
OPEN DEFECATION FREE MADURAI/SALEM
Owing to the Swatchh Bharat mission, Ms. Rohini made Madurai as the first district in Tamil Nadu to become open-defecation free through community-led approach. “It was about bringing behavior change in people and they involved themselves in the entire initiative,” she held.
She applied the same approach in Salem by the name of ‘Mission Swatchh Salem’ along-with UNICEF, making it open-defecation-free in a sustainable manner. “We not only focused on the construction of toilets but also the behavioral change in people. Proper waste management, construction of public toilets, and the banishing of open-defecation were done in the district,” she told Indian Masterminds.
‘MISSION NOORERIIYAKKAM’
Various districts get water-deprived when the water levels go really low. They are considered to be “critical districts” in terms of groundwater level. To address this grievance, Ms. Rohini initiated drought-proofing systems in the district. ‘Mission Nooreriiyakkam’ translating to ‘100 water tanks’ was launched and it rejuvenated numerous water tanks and channels in the district.
“Tamil Nadu is famous for tank irrigation, so these were the lifelines of the farmers. We identified river basins and ensured that the work was done in a holistic manner. The mission was successful and the water bodies are flourishing now,” she said.
Palm trees are strong trees and they keep upright even during major cyclones. Keeping that in mind, the administration planted hundreds of palm trees on the banks of these tanks and channels, ensuring the arrest of soil erosion retaining the banks during heavy floods. The project was called ‘Mission Green Salem.’
PROJECT VIDIYAL
Project Vidiyal (translating to New Dawn) was short-listed for Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Service and focused on the tribal people residing in Kalrayan hills. It was a comprehensive and holistic development plan for the 44 tribal hamlets inhabiting the hills in the Eastern part of Salem. “We identified what the tribal people are good at and what are the resources available to provide them. We ensured to enable them to make a living out of that.” They supplied these tribes with Kadukkai seeds that have Ayurvedic properties and provided them with machines to clean and peel off the seeds and then packet them.
“Earlier they sold these seeds at a very low cost, but now when they market them, their revenue has increased by 5 times,” exclaimed Ms. Rohini.
Kalrayan hills are known for a good yield of minor millets. They are available in abundance in the area. The district provided the people with machines and set up bakeries for them so they could bake cookies or biscuits from the millets, which were healthier than the usual maida biscuits and cookies.
“Different flavors were also added and we ensured that the cooperative stores entirely buy their product. So everything was taken care of, right from scratch and the cookies were also a big hit!” she told Indian Masterminds.
ENTERING THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS
Back in 2018, when nobody had even heard of the ongoing Corona Virus, Ms. Rohini was already breaking records by mobilizing and showing people the proper way of washing hands. One time, she demonstrated the right method to 11-12 lakh people at a time, thereby entering her and Salem’s name in the prestigious Guinness book of world records on the occasion of World Hand-Washing Day! “Never knew that Covid-19 would hit us in a year or two, but we were somehow able to accomplish the record then. It’s good that people of Salem are already aware of how to wash their hands properly since then. It is something very satisfactory to me” she says.
WORK IN ANGANWADIS
Anganwadis are well managed in Tamil Nadu except for one aspect, i.e., personal hygiene of the cooks preparing mid-day meals. “We did a simple intervention of giving them good quality aprons, gloves, and caps.” This simple step brought a lot of difference in their self too. They felt proud of what they were doing.”
Another initiative for the Anganwadis was called ‘Salem Super Anganwadi’ where the district administration ensured to install a small nursery in-front of every Anganwadi so that children knew how to plant saplings and grow plants and green vegetables.
“There was a sandpit for them to play, a nursery, and the beatification of the schools was done. Instead of going to private schools, they started enrolling in Anganwadis and we could see an increase in their number” she told Indian Masterminds
OTHER INITIATIVES
Ms. Rohini has also initiated several other projects like Mission Rain-Gain where they ensured that every government building, school, and private establishments set up rainwater harvesting system in their buildings. This too proved to be a huge hit! Furthermore, mobile milk collection vans were launched to help people who earlier had to travel 30-40 km to sell their milk.
Ms Rohini really proved to be a boon for Salem!
