Kerala: Kasaragod district collector shortlisted for national award

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kasaragod district collector D Sajith Babu has figured in the list of top 12 district collectors shortlisted by the centre for the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2020. The ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions handpicked them from 739 districts across the country under the topic 'improving service delivery and redressal of public grievances'.The winner will be announced in a few days.
Others in the final list are the district collectors of West Godavari (Andhra Pradesh), Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh), Nawada (Bihar), Yamunanagar (Haryana), Mahendragarh (Haryana), Ganderbal (Jammu and Kashmir), Parbhani (Maharashtra), Jalandhar (Punjab), Sirohi (Rajasthan), Siricilla (Telangana) and Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh).
The modified system of file processing by Kasaragod district collector titled 'reach out programme' has made him eligible for the award. In the system, he goes to taluk levels to clear files, thus cutting short the hierarchy.
In the usual Tottenham system, a file takes the route of official hierarchy before reaching the field office that mostly ends up eating up at least a year. "Every file, even if for a minor matter that reaches the district collector would naturally go through four tahasildars and two deputy collectors in addition to other officials before reaching the collector. This consumes a lot of time,” Sajith Babu said.
Every month, he devoted few working days to visit the four taluk offices in his jurisdiction- Manjeshwaram, Kasargod, Kanhangad, and Vellarikkund, besides the subdivision offices of Kanhangad and Kasargod.
He was able to clear 59,373 of the 61,924 files that were pending for years by using a Google document and the services of a dedicated executive assistant. “We were able to dispose of as many as 81% of the petitions without even entering into the main backfiles, within 15 to 30 days,” Sajith Babu said. He said that at present, the district has only 2,551 files pending that are more than two years old.