To start the Delhi Governance research internship, the students met with Mrs. Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi on 19 May at her residence. Coordially welcoming the students from various Colleges in India, she appreciated the participation of youth in understanding the State Goveranance. She expressed support to the program and wished to have a follow up meeting in June after the findings of the research. PHOTOS
Interns express their Gratitude & what they aspire…
Missing Library Books
Missing Documentaries
To confirm participation email at baishali@ccs.in or call at +91 98713 66407.
I want you to tell me ur thoughts about e governance, what u think it is, ur views on the success of e-governance in Delhi, its possible hurdles, etc
Hello everyone. My name is Bhavya Khanna, and I’m joining as an online research guide. Allow me a quick introduction. I interened two years ago, in 2007 at CCS; and just finished my undergraduate degree in Business and Economics from SMU. In 2007, I worked on poverty premiums in delhi slums; so will be keeping a closer eye on those working on Urban Development projects. However, feel free to ask my any questions you have. I’ll respond as fast as possible on the blog, and can also be reached directly be email/chat on bhavya(at)gmail(dot)com.
Release of the Research Paper: ‘Sustainable Livelihood for Hills – Policy and Institutional Arrangements for Kalari Cheese in the Hills of Jammu & Kashmir
&
Partnership launch between Centre for Civil Society and Times Foundation
TF and CCS come together for Delhi Citizens Handbook 2009
Date: 5 June 2009
Venue: Press Club of India, Raisina Marg, New Delhi
Press Clippings
1. TF
3. http://www.epilogue.in/index.aspx?getpage=Page%2056&getdate=June%202009
The website of the Admin Reform dept says that Mr GS Patnaik is the Principal Secretary of the Dept, when in fact it is Mr Rakesh Mohan. Once we found this out at the secretariat, we set up an appointment with Mr Mohan, for later, whose office is in a different wing, different floor. It remains to be seen how involved he is in the working of the dept.
Next we went to the finance dept and planning dept, where we got the budget of the AR dept and the annual outlay for 2008-09 for all depts. Anyone who wants to check out their dept feel free to ask me and bhanu for that booklet. We shall also be getting Economic Survey of Delhi for the same year next week. We had a chat with Mr V K Malhotra who explained the layout of the budget that we had gotten, with the different heads.
We also met up with Mr A K Goel, assistant director in the admin reform dept. He informed us that the dept has a record of file numbers and subjects as record of file movement, and brought for us the record of the previous 2 years of the same. From that it was obvious that most issues for which the files come to the dept are quite trivial, such as purchase of fans, hiring security guards and mostly increase in staffing.
He also made it amply clear that the dept’s role stops with recommending measures on file, and there is NO CHECKBACK to know what happened to the same. Further, there is hardly any suo moto action taken up because the likelihood of acceptance is practically nil, even though that is within the mandate of the dept. For example, a suggestion to downsize a particular dept will most likely fall on deaf ears with no knowledge of what happened to the idea. This is a clear disincentive for any kind of suggestion to be made.
It seems that either a body with a higher authority than just a dept is needed to enforce change for it to take place, or there needs to be some Herculean effort from within to push change. This speaks ill of adaptability of any govt enterprise, undertaking or administration. Otherwise a change will be taken up only if it benefits the members of the current structure personally.
I had gone to the seretariat today to meet the Additional secretary of directorate of Vigilance, New Delhi.
When I reached there he wasn’t in his office so I met the additional directorate ofVigilance, with whom I could spend about 2 hours 45 minutes interviewing him and was very very helpful.
As soon as I came out of his room, I met the additional secretary an even spent about an hour with me. Also one major achievement was that the addtl sectretary said that I can give him update on my paper every 3-4 days and he will assist me making my paper!
I obviously won’t include only the things he tells me and in the way he tells me, but still t’ll be greatly beneficial!
After a little acting here and there, I could also manage the mobile number of the ex- chief secretary of the diectorate of vigilance, delhi!
So al-in-all it was a good trip. I might have to go to a tehseeldar someday. But not in the near future:)
Just thought I’ll inform you guys:)
our (cheishta’s n my)trip to d transport dept wasnt one of the most friutful..but it sure ws interesting! with only 3 officials rely present at the office..of whom only 2 cud “spare time” to meet us..of the two..the first official ws indeed the most interesting..he “could not give me any info on BRT as i understnd twas beyond his purview..but dere wer other many things dat he cud tel us bout..any gueses..wel no..m sure nobody wud even be able to mak a gues at dat..sir ws apparently at ease enuf to share wid us his knowledge of god, religion, spirituality, yogaa, n noooo!!he ws in no hurry at all..he tuk his tym(bout an hour) to explain to us every detail n reason y we must do as he says n y it is d right age..n as we (finally) left..he made us promise(for d umpteenth time) dat we shall go home n purchse a copy of “the autobiography of a Yogi” n read it..slow n steady..ahhhh….but atleast he was a nice old man..not one of those babus who refused even to meet us !!tsk tsk..
From there we had gone to the old secretariat to visit the vigilance commision building(which v later got to kno had bin removed from dere)..n on r way..v came acros a sign board giving d direction of some office of some girl child edu govt scheme..a lil while later..came a building..rather a two room shabby dilapidated setup..locked..n a shabbier board hung on one of the windows indicating dat d room was assigned to the office..so much for educating ur laadli!!
