The city of Surat today is known as one of the cleanest in India, but it wasn’t always
like this.
In 1994, the Indian city suffered a plague of truly catastrophic proportions, within
a week the city was declared an international epidemic site and quarantined by both local
officials and the Indian army.
The scale of this plague was such that it demanded national attention and a reassessment
of how the basic foundations of city administration worked in the aftermath.
When over 400,000 people are able to leave the city and medicine able to treat the infestation
is being hoarded, you have a problem.
How do you come back from an event like this?
When we often speak about city planning and public administration in the developed world
at large we often speak about institutions which have been around for centuries running
autonomously from a central state.
Governmental bodies with a degree of standards in areas of sanitation, education, roadways,
with a budget to back them up.
For developing nations whose budgets can come from a variety of non-tax revenue sources
(Afghanistan’s budget was mostly grants), there often is a perpetuating lack of funds
which cripples local development even if those facilities need upgrades.
The standards likely are the same, but structural problems plague meeting those standards for
a majority of the population.
India is a lot more centralized than one might think.
Civil servants from the Indian Administrative Services fulfill duties on behalf of the central
or state government depending on the needs of the administration requesting them.
All cities in India above 1 million in population have both an elected mayor and a “Municipal
Commissioner” who handles the daily administrative functions.
If you want me to talk more in depth about how the Indian government is organized, let
me know in the comments.
For right now, what we need to focus on is the different kinds of responsibilities that
Indian municipal corporations have which differ drastically from Western governments.
In the US for instance, inspection of slaughter houses and tanneries would likely have some
federal equivalent in the Department of Agriculture, but Indian municipal corporations as we can
see must do that work on their own.
It is this kind of responsibility that commissioners of Municipal Corporations take on when they
are appointed.
After the plague had been contained and the Gujarat state government recognized the planning
and operation of the city needed re-evaluation, a civil servant named SR Rao was selected
to lead Surat.
He would later describe the posting as a suicide mission.
While I don’t want to put the man on a pedestal, he is a shining example of what makes an excellent
public servant, especially given what that city had just experienced.
The foundation of Surat’s government wasn’t rotten as much as it didn’t exist in the
eyes of the average citizen.
Local wealthy residents had flaunted regulations on designing their buildings, parking, you
name it- they were like local princes.
SR Rao, in this kind of environment, went out personally along with his staff every
morning to ensure that people knew that a government existed to support the city’s
development.
Rao’s strategy, “AC to DC” governance, got the office workers into the streets to
establish confidence and an understanding of the impact of their work.
They would ensure regulations were followed and that no outbreak would occur under the
watch of the new Commissioner.
If this would mean going against those wealthy few who thought of Surat more as a giant playground,
then let that be the case.
Given the wealth imbalance in India, it was not uncommon for legislators to hire security
details, but Rao was determined to get the city on a better footing.
Taxes in India are a tricky thing, in that there are millions working in an informal
gray economy where taxes are underreported or just not paid.
This was even more the case in the 1990s when India lacked the digital infrastructure it
has today.
SR Rao targeted the tax dodgers who owed the government massive sums which could be collected
on, and ended up giving Surat a war chest to use towards larger improvements.
The fact that many were wealthy local and state figueres was merely coincidence, of
course.
According to Outlook magazine in 1996, “The gutters have been cleaned and covered.
Roads and streets have been broadened and paved all over—in the residential areas,
the shopping centres and even the red light street close to the Surat municipal office
itself.
If nature has burdened Surat with black dust in profusion, Rao has given the city its streets
free of junk and garbage, its slums pay-and-use Sulabh toilets and a cleaner environment,
its shops mandatory dustbins and penalty, also known as ‘administrative charges’,
for default.”
Rao’s work turned a municipal corporation that citizens didn’t even know existed to
operate in their behalf into a true political body.
Organs of state functioning at the municipal level to ensure that the city would prosper
and not linger in decay after a plague.
Complaint forms, a seemingly simple but powerful tool, were put in place for remanding bad
conduct from officials, who would then be held accountable for their actions.
In a nation such as India which has suffered from corruption and a lack of institutional
accountability, these tools for holding officials accountable to the public and more importantly
their enforcement were one pillar among many SR Rao set up for the betterment of the city.
Although he only served for a short few years in Surat before moving on to other posts within
the Indian administrative system, those few years were a strong indication of character
and the good that public servants can do.
The simplest of changes can sometimes lead to radically positive outcomes.
One year after finalizing his time at Surat, SR Rao was awarded India’s fourth highest
civil honor, the Padma Shri.
Wherever you are in the world, I encourage you to look for the political figures in your
region who are fighting for positive change, no matter how small.
Whether those changes mean fixing sewage lines, cleaning up water or land pollution, fighting
for cultural preservation, electrifying a remote area, or solving larger national crises-
public servants spend their hours trying to create solutions for issues far larger than
themselves.
For this work, it is my view they deserve admiration.
After his time in Surat had finished, the former Municipal Commissioner became the head
of India’s third largest state owned port located in Andrah Pradesh state.
He also went on to work with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
I wanted to tell this man’s story as an example that bureaucrats and public servants
are not some nebulous blob like these people, they do real work that impacts people’s
lives.
In India they go through rigorous examinations in order to be selected.
That selection process for the Indian Administrative Services could easily be a video in and of
itself.
If they are selected from a batch of hopeful candidates, it can truly be a life changing
career.
If you have made it to the end of this video, thank you.
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