Srinagar
Author of the book ‘Not Just a Civil Servant’, Anil Swarup was in conversation with people from different walks of life here at Gandhi Bhawan, the University of Kashmir on Thursday.
The conversation was part of the attempts made by Swarup after penning down his experiences in the form of a book to capture some moments of the journey as a civil servant.
On the occasion, people from the State administration, students, professionals and professors from various departments of the Kashmir University were present.
Farooq Ahmad Shah, former Commissioner Secretary Education, PHE Irrigation and Flood Control J&K, Shah Faesal, former IAS officer and Sunil Sharma, Director General IEEMA, were the guests of honour.
Swarup is former Secretary, School Education (2016-2018) and Ministry of Coal (2014-2016), Government of India.
There was a marathon question-answer session regarding the book and experiences of Swarup as a civil servant. The audience posed questions to Swarup regarding his tenure as a civil servant and different facets vis-a-vis Jammu and Kashmir. They hailed Swarup’s contribution especially towards the education sector of J&K.
In his address, Swarup talked about his beginnings as an IAS officer and the amusing things he saw travelling the country. He also spoke about the importance of transparency in governance and public-private partnerships and urged upon the participants to take administrative service as the best opportunity to serve the people of the country.
The book ‘Not Just a Civil Servant’which was released earlier this year chronicles the journey through Anil Swarup’s early career in Uttar Pradesh where he faced several issues at district and state level, and also at the national level where he worked for the Ministry of Labour, the Cabinet Secretariat and then served as Secretary, Ministry of Coal, and Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
As Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development (School Education and Literacy), Swarup played a vital role to help the Centre to draw a roadmap for the Valley schools. He helped the Centre to partner Jammu and Kashmir to help reform school education system in the state and prepare a blueprint to overcome deficiencies in programme implementation in the year 2017.
The initiative was aimed to make J&K the second state after Uttar Pradesh with which the Centre would work closely in a sector which falls within the purview of the state government.
