Retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan, who joined the services in 1978 and retired in 2016, is a man of many talents. During his service period, he served in various capacities and also became the Chief Secretary for the Government of UP for two years.
Post retirement he worked as an Advisor to the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and was the Chairman of UP State Industrial Development Corporation. He was also instrumental for the development of the Lucknow-Agra Expressway of the Lucknow Metro.
Post retirement, life hasn’t slowed for him. He is busy these days writing. The author of the book, Making a Difference, the IAS as a Career, is now set to publish his next book on Ethics. In an exclusive interview to Indian Masterminds, he talked about his experiences in civil service and opined on various subjects related to it.
EXCERPTS
How much has the working of the IAS changed over the years?
I got into the services at very young age of 21 and served for 38 years. In all these years, I witnessed various ups and downs and the biggest of them all was increasing dominance of political establishment as far as the governance is concerned. This change has both positive and negative impact on the IAS. While political people have better understanding of public than the officers, sometimes their increased interference don’t allow the officers to follow the rule of law.
Earlier, the officers used to stand up for their principles but now, I think, due to increased careerism, they bend a lot or keep quiet. In states like UP, or others also, you can find many officers with political alignment.
The other major change which I see is, now more technical people get into the services which is a good thing, as they come with a lot of knowledge and bring technology into governance.
Can an IAS officer work as a neutral entity in today’s times?
Most of the people who joined at our time were neutral when it came to politics. The political interference has definitely increased, but they can be neutral. An officer only loses his or her neutrality when they look for short term gain like better posting or career prospects. They go to politicians for help and in no time they are aligned with them. This becomes worse when they start doing unethical things for that alignment to continue.
Politicians do not interfere in every matter. If an officer wants to do hard work for public service, lots of good things can be done.
What is the biggest challenges before IAS, which can even impact the need of the service?
The responsibility of an IAS officer is too big and during the career, they have to go through various challenges at the individual level, too. I believe the time has come for them to change their whole orientation. They have to stop believing that this service can maintain a status quo. They have to act as change agents as technology is changing and so is the socio-political environment. All this is happening really fast. The officers have to be more dynamic, learn fast, and deliver. If IAS as a service wants to exist, it needs to deliver on the ground level.
You served as Chief Secretary of UP during Akhilesh Yadav’s regime and also worked as his Chief Advisor after your retirement. Have you ever been associated with his party?
I became Chief Ssecretary as per the seniority and experience. I would have served on that position irrespective of who was in the governance. But, yes, lot of people confuse with this Chief Advisor thing. I was not his political advisor. It was even mentioned in the order that I was going to be advisor on matter of governance. My task was to monitor projects of more than 100 crores and make sure they were completed on time, nothing else.
In all those years of service, which has been your most satisfying assignment?
I have had the opportunity to serve in various positions and be involved in a number of projects. It is difficult to name one of them. I served as the DC for five districts and was able to solve grievances of people, which still gives me a lot of satisfaction. I, with my team, started total literacy project in Agra and 5.5 lakhs adults were made literate in one year. That one counts for a big satisfaction! Besides this, as Chief Secretary of UP, I worked on implementation of various projects like the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, Dial 100 and Lucknow metro, for which I feel proud of myself.
Your message for the young brigade who are new in the service or are going to join soon.
There will be times where you won’t get success, but that doesn’t matter. Even if you’re able to do six out of ten things, you have done justice to your post. Your attitude should be to solve the problems of the public, do something new and bring a little change.
