THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: D Sajith Babu, District Collector, Kasaragod, has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s 2020 award under the category, ‘Improving Service Delivery and Redressal of Public Grievances’. He is the only district collector to get shortlisted from the state and also from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. He has avoided the red-tapism in Kasaragod district administration where the file movement is brisk and not all the officials have to see the files in person. Currently, only 2,511 files are pending out of four taluk offices, two RDOs and a collectorate which enabled him to get shortlisted.
The 47-year-old collector, who is a 2012 IAS batch official, did his presentation in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday via video conferencing where he held his 15 minutes presentation before the officials of the Department of Administrative Reforms.
The Thiruvananthapuram native recalled in his presentation that even though the country had attained freedom, the file flow process never attained freedom as the file movement initiated during 1932 by the then British Collector Richard Tottenham in North Arcot district, is still being followed.
“File movement is a tedious and time consuming process. It goes through various lower offices ranging from village office, taluk, RDO office before it reaches the Collector’s office. A petition takes at least 11 to 12 months to get meaningful relief. Here I felt a change is required. Now the letter received will be directly sent to the concerned RDO/taluk/village without passing through intermediate sections,” Sajith, who has more than half a dozen post graduate degrees, told TNIE.