pleasure being here today I am going to
we're more not towards my personal life
but maybe my professional journey what
I've been I'll be taking you through
today but it's been a very eventful
journey I would say so far I belong to
the 2010 batch of fires and I've been
working for about nine years now and the
is so that's my journey which I'll be
taking you through my journey started
with me being a very active student I
would say active in other ways not just
an education I was doing a lot of
extracurricular activities throughout my
school days and I happen to change 14
schools that was a very big task for us
in at that point of time because people
used to say where's your continuity in
education but my education mostly I
should say thanks to my parents was home
education school education was so so so
my I should thank my mother for being my
best teacher and taking this journey so
far as an excellent student but after my
tenth scored well then I suddenly gave a
shocker to my family I said I will be
doing arts instead of science so
everybody was like what what are you
doing then a lot of people's consoled me
not my parents of course but the other
family member said how do you want to be
successful in life if you're not going
to opt for maths or science in your
college so confusing time for a person
who's just finished her 10th standard so
I was really worried and I went to my
parents so then started my journey I
would say this was what my father told
me my father a former bureaucrat he
himself here was always telling me
things through some motivational quotes
so he gave me the first one that you see
on screen there
and he said do you want to be successful
or significant that started my journey
and I said okay here am I am going to
pursue my dreams so I did arts I was an
excellent student again all through and
I finished graduation from the London
School of Economics then people said
yeah she is successful because I joined
the private job which was earning quite
a lot to the so called a dream job for a
lot of people and I continued on that
journey for about two years then again
one day I just had this grand awakening
again am I being successful or am I
being significant am I making a
significant change then again I had to
do a rethink and a theory Oh jump I came
back to the civil services because
having seen it and the impact it can
have on a lot of lives I decided let me
let me take this journey and I took the
exam cleared it Here I am and solving my
own City which is I hail from Hyderabad
so again this is a city I know this is a
city I have grown up with and I had the
wonderful opportunity to serve here
again so what do I do
so the same quotation I would say it
takes me forward here to what
contribution am I making to the city
that I I can say that I've I've
contributed something good to the city
so this drove me and I will come to the
last quotation and the end but which can
actually tell you my motivation for this
journey further so this is what none of
us in a city we all see the wonderful
highways wonderful buildings high-rises
everything but have we seen this we
might have but we don't we tend to
ignore it so this was my journey
beginning
this is the dump yard that the city has
it's a common story across the country
you'll find it in many places but then
this is my job too
so what am i doing to reduce this then I
realized as I was going through this
journey that as I as a person of
Hyderabad as a resident of the city how
do I perceive this after seeing this so
I started with myself I said okay let me
first transform and see how I can do it
so I started home composting it was a
difficult journey again my mate took one
month of convincing and then I moved on
to my office I made the first green
office in telangana way by simply redo
redoing the entire processes I had to
take my team along convince them at that
point of time when I was talking about
green governance which was five years
ago none of my team were convinced they
said madam why are we doing this we are
supposed to do drains we are supposed to
do roads we are supposed to do basic
amenities I said this is basic amenities
we need to convince ourselves that we
need to work towards our city our
well-being because it's it's our health
and our environment so starting with
that my home I am a home composed to
myself and then I segregate and then we
took the journey to the office and we
made it a green office which is a
plastic band office and a lot of other
green initiatives like water saving and
all were incorporated into it
then I said okay let's this was a
success so this started motivating as
further as a team also so we said okay
why don't we take it to the city why
don't we make the city also more
eco-friendly and more greener and more
better so we started with smaller
initiatives the the pictures that you
see are things we made out of tires and
drums which were lying around
offices in our vehicle yachts and we
collected the plastic from our office
and started putting them onto the roads
as art pieces it bought the the
appreciation was immense there was a lot
of perception change in a lot of people
in the city itself that this could be
done and that this started the recycling
revolution in the city so we moved on to
bigger things we said ok yes our basic
whole job is providing core amenities so
how do we reconvert that process into a
more greener process and bring about
more eco-friendly initiatives to the
city so there we started with now the
city I would I'm proud to say has about
60 kilometers of plastic roads which are
plastic mixed bTW which I have not put
here because it looks like a normal road
and then those tiles that you see the
colorful ones are tiles made out of
recycled plastic which we have collected
in our yards so and then you see the
rooms the toilets there were a lot of
other things we have made and we've
recycle about 25 million metric tons of
plastic waste and Hydra bath so that's a
Sofia huge number and for a city in
India it is it's quite large so these
were all the initiatives and then now it
is it's just become mainstream everybody
is picking up these initiatives this is
how it became mainstream
and that's acceptance so I was not
afraid of small changes I thought ok
let's start small then move on to bigger
larger things and then came the
acceptance from people there were a lot
of critics they did say ok is it going
to be costly is it gold is it really
echo friendly what is the process which
goes into it so these were all questions
raised at multiple points of time even
by my own colleagues so but still we
persisted we said let's try it out and
it's a small initiative so with small
initiatives we moved on to bigger things
that's how we got the culture of
acceptance going and then later came the
further
larger impact initiatives like we've
started changing our fleet into a
greener fleet the city fleet and then
moving on to bigger eco projects so a
lot of cities and even in Hyderabad I
used to think how do we make green
initiatives owned by people how do we
unless we get people into a project Viva
we are not gonna make a success out of
it
maybe it will be just a way of doing a
government project you just do it and go
away from it so lakes were our assets
Hyderabad is known as the city of lakes
so we said okay how are we going to
reconvert them and make them back
vibrant places where people can enjoy
and also own them so the ownership to
create that we created a lot of
facilities where people go to enjoy our
children and also restore the lake and
once the lake is restored what happens
when a lot of people start using it it's
it's owned by someone it is owned by the
people of the city so that's what we
aspire to create we've going slow with
this this is a second project one at a
time we have done the Mira long park now
which you see there some of you might
not have seen it yet in the city but
please do and then we then another big
initiative that I took which invited a
lot of lots of doubts I created a dog
park dog park
people were like there's no parks first
humans out there so why are you creating
something for a dog that was the
question first I didn't know how to
answer them in the first wave in the
first instance but then this ideas
parked from one old lady coming to us
and telling us I treat my pet as a
member of my family you are creating
spaces where people can go you're
creating livable spaces where the entire
families can enjoy then why can't I and
with my pet and some others told me that
we cannot take a walk out with my pet
because there's a lot of traffic on the
roads and then a lot of people don't
allow dogs in their societies so that
got us thinking isn't the city liveable
for everyone so there we decided we will
do this and after doing this again this
is the support was the and the love that
the city gave was immense this became
the first project of its kind in India
so there that was the some of the press
reviews that you can see then we moved
on to other green projects why I'm
showing these was these projects are not
done with any non eco-friendly material
they were all done with green cement and
permeable concrete which lets the water
seep and we used all like Oh friendly
materials which are locally sourced so
creating that culture itself in an
organization was difficult trying to
tell them what is eco-friendly what is
not is again a difficult proposition but
then again coming back to a city which
is liveable for everyone so is it only
parks or recreation that we create or is
it something where we give opportunities
to everyone that's another concept that
we went ahead with and I create we went
design this project of having a toilet
come marketing place for most of our
woman I was into a motivating woman to
move towards green friendly products
they were making cloth bags jute bags
and paper bags and a lot of echo
friendly cutlery and all so these woman
came one day to us and asked us where do
we market them where do I take them to
the general public
you've taught us these skills so again
we moved to this reinvention and then
created this initiative and it also was
a major success in the city after that I
didn't do anything
a lot of people
in the city started coming to me with
ideas they said this is how we make our
city better this is one initiative that
I wanted to show like that that is
called feed the need and he of East
opened this concept of public fridges
fridges were kept in the city and
anybody who has excess food just drops
it off in your home you can have it you
can have it in your restaurant which you
had an extra meal and you just drop it
off in the fridge and whoever's hungry
picks it up this we thought would match
the need of reducing food waste and also
integrating you know do you know that
20% people in the city sleep hungry
every night we didn't we also waste 25
to 30 percent food so we had to see that
food stays alive for 2-3 days so if it's
kept in a fridge we all do that at homes
so why not make it a public initiative
so we did that and today we're 40
fridges strong it's going stronger lot
of support again from the public so my
takeaway to all of you and for this
event is that don't be afraid to
experiment lot of lots of negativity
will come your way
this can anybody guess what it is it's a
drone yes but for what right this is not
a clearing drain
it's our drone which is doing mosquito
spraying that was done manually before
people used to get into this kind of
lakes and start cleaning or spraying the
lake so that mosquito doesn't breed
there it was unhygenic it was
undignified for our workers to get into
the water and spray so how do we do this
it took me a year to think of a solution
for this but I did again lot of
questions when the drone collapse into
the water won't you drive the draw
to somebody's house this is an open area
which we tried out so we tried it and
again amazing results with that but here
if I was afraid of all these commands if
I was afraid that this there's so much
of negativity on this project can can
you take it forward if I lacked
confidence and myself all the initiative
that I was taking up could I push it
through
not really so this is there there is I
come back to a statement which Thomas
Edison very famously made if I did not
if I failed in an experiment after
trying thousand times I did it I I would
think it's learning because I I would
think that I have learned not to do a
thing in thousand different ways so yes
playing with public resources sometimes
is very difficult so in most of my
experiments at least I had taken the
support of my team
Donna thorough analysis went back to the
board several times there were several
initiatives that I have not been able to
carry through which I have not put on
this but again I tell you as and only
when we believe that change is possible
number one and that you can make the
change number two and believe in the
change you want to make you cannot
succeed ever if a freedom fighters
thought that independence was not
possible would we be here today so it's
always life was always for the brave for
anybody who's willing to take the chance
willing to risk it so I go back to the
first slide that I have said again was I
successful or was I significant I take
pride in saying that I I was significant
I might not be recognized for it not
required
you wouldn't have heard of these
initiatives but did I make life better
even for a few one two or number of
people in small ways or big ways I feel
that I go to bed with that satisfaction
and that is what I would say all of us
should think about even in small ways
big ways you can choose a different
career path
this was my chosen path and I could do
what I wanted and what I thought was for
the better of the society that with that
I would go back and I coming to the the
first code about significant and success
I didn't bother about success I was
bothered about making a difference
making some significant contribution and
success followed so there's again what
was there in the last slide first slide
I would say the comment that we don't
create we don't move into the future we
are the creators of our future so how do
we do that do we make it better do we
make it significant or do we let it just
let somebody else make a future for you
that is a - in which I would advise all
all of you and take it forward so thank
you thank you for this venue and
[Applause]