For instance, we know about the Rashtriya Sastha Bima Yojana which has impacted more than 35 millions of people. Unlike other opportunities this role gives me a choice to do or not to do, a choice which I rarely find anywhere else. “Being an IAS not only provides one with the enormous opportunities to have new experiences but also to do well unto others. This is evident in the last chapter of his first book ‘Not just a Civil Servant’, where he says if reborn, he would choose to be an IAS officer all over again. But 38 years in service, and his outlook underwent a sea change. This was when Swarup hardly knew what being an IAS meant. Lessons were learned from the mistakes of the previous government.Anil Swarup’s journey to becoming an IAS was long embryonic in his father’s dream of seeing his son in this much hallowed post. How true it was! Yes, we were told very clearly that PMO should not be mentioned in any decision the Ministry/Department takes. “In a subsequent meeting at the PMO, when the issue came up for discussion again, and I referred to the note that I had sent, I was given a dressing down that the PMO does not take decisions.
Ultimately, he had to send a note to the Principal Secretary raising certain issues and questioning why coal should be supplied at a notified price to such entities granting undue favour or preferential treatment to them when there is no legal or contractual obligation.
He writes how in almost every meeting convened by the PMO, whether relating to coal or otherwise, he was asked if he had provided linkages to some ‘privileged’ industrialists. He complained that the PMO was not kept informed.”Īnd as coal production substantially increased, so did the pressure to accommodate some industrialists. “When the call from Shri Mishra came, I had expected a few words of praise from him as well. The transparency he ensured in the coal block auctions and its success found prominence in newsrooms and news reels, but when the call came from the PMO, it was not on expected lines.
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