The Government has created a wave a cheer all around with good governance, feels Heera Lal, an IAS officer in the Government of Uttar Pradesh who recently took over as Special Secretary in the Department of Culture. He earlier served as the Managing Director of Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation Limited (UPDESCO), a state-run PSU under the Department of Information & Technology and Electronics.
In an interaction with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN), he elaborates some innovative steps taken by him for good governance in a short span of five months. Excerpts:
What efforts did you make for the empanelment of companies working in different domains?
I made efforts for framing policies for empanelment of companies/firms as education and training franchisees, Aadhar registration work, rural development and survey work and software service providers/ consultants/ manpower suppliers so that empanelment process can be held on regular monthly basis and corporation can have large and varied pool of technologically competent professionals for rendering required services to the departments/organisations. I had also given special emphasis on formulation of Outsourcing Manpower Policy so that government norms can be followed in right perspective and the service provider/manpower supplier companies/firms perform their services in a transparent manner.
Google To inculcate ‘Go Green’ culture in the UPDESCO, what initiatives have been undertaken?
How did it benefit the Corporation? Efforts have been made to create a new working domain in Solar Energy/Power area considering the demands of various State Government departments/ organisations. This has not only enhanced the business opportunity for the Corporation but also facilitated for working towards achievement of ‘Go Green’ culture. As a result, the Corporation got an order of around Rs. 14.00 crores from 20 State ITIs under vocational education department for installation and maintenance of 40 KVA Solar Power Systems in their premises.
How did you improve the performance of system and changed the mindset of staff?
I started new style for review of new and ongoing projects wherein letters are sent to client departments along with standard agenda points for fixing of review meetings. This has resulted in expeditious follow ups of the projects in terms of quality assurance and timely completion. I also started collective decision making. All top officials/nodals participated in weekly meeting with a prefix agenda. After thorough and detailed discussions, decisions were taken. This cabinet like approach/style of working brought the best possible decisions.
What was the result achieved after whole exercise?
The turnover in FY (2015-16) and (2016-17) were Rs. 9,583.24 lakhs and Rs. 15,294.45 lakhs respectively. Thus, turnover was increased by 60 per cent over previous financial year. Similarly profit increased from Rs. 623.80 lakhs to Rs. 1,186.21 lakhs (a 90 per cent increase).
What factors hindered performance?
Availability of necessary and skilled technical manpower in required numbers as per the sanctioned structure of the organisation may have enhanced the quantity and quality of services in a given timeframe but managed the same in an efficient manner with limited number of available resources in the organisation with the help of technology and management improvement initiative.
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Areas in which there is need to upgrade skills through training programmes are Financial Management and Fiscal Planning, Project Planning and Management using IT/ICT tools, e-Governance and m-governance with special focus on governance using cloud technology and IOT.
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