Review meeting at Rajendranagar

I spent the last two days at Rajendranagar where the bimonthly review meeting of Land Unit took place. Obviously my observations of the exercise are from the vantage point of an outsider. (coupled with my minimal grasp of conversations in Telugu)
Let’s understand the organisation structure of Land Unit.



In a proposed plan the surveyors will be made into a pool for every district. Andhra Pradesh has got around 1100+ Mandals and Land Unit works in almost 327+ of them. Legal coordinators are law graduates recruited by SERP. Most of them are from the 2006 batch pass outs. The Land Managers are mostly retired tahsildars or senior officials having such experience. I don’t know if it was a deliberate strategy to experience and wisdom of senior officials with energy and zeal of young law grads.
I was completely surprised by the active participation of district teams in the issues discussed in the review. Instead of the traditional image of a government system with Top to Bottom decision style, what I saw here could be more of a participative nature in the decision making processes. I hope the district teams are replicating the same in their operation as well.
Nonetheless I also wondered if the discussions are going around less important or perhaps trivial matters. Are we getting bogged down in systems, formats, procedures and processes while losing sight of the great and magnificent goals of the organizations? I could strike friendship with a few guys in the limited occasions of tea and lunch breaks. One of them gloomily noted, how come satisfaction is proportional to the reports and not to the work. This might be a cliché regarding the executive branch. I hope this is just because of my inexperience in understanding the way of things happen. For from my own experience I have come to know that documenting and presenting your effort is as equal or perhaps more important than the work itself. I am not sure if it’s an ideal situation to be in !

state sponsored coaching for entrance exams

It has been more than one week since I have joined SERP. Dude, it’s high time that I have fast tracked to some real work. Good bye to naivety and deep hug to processes and procedures. What I am afraid is “I am no longer outside the box”, I have been sucked into the closer space of black hole of system where my thoughts will be forced to oscillate in a limited space. Oh.. fuck, stop the crap..nyway I have never shown ny OOTB character. May be it’s high time I did.
Last week I visited a few corporate junior colleges where DRDA is sponsoring students from underprivileged families to undergo quality coaching for the preparation of IIT and other entrance examinations. Senthil’s moot point was, “is government promoting the private coaching centres ?” (which they should not do ?)
Before going further let us look at what are these coaching centres. These are recognised by the AP govt as “junior colleges” offering XI and XII regular classes along with special training for facing national level entrance examinations. They collect fees of approximately Rs. 60,000 per year from a student including his academic and lodging facilities. Each campus is having approximately 1500+ residential students. I wonder if they are having library, lab and other facilities for this many students.
Now to answer Senthil’s question, I believe in the present flawed system of entrance examinations only the students who can access special coaching are moving ahead. As long as this is the reality we cannot turn a blind eye to the need of coaching for students from less privileged households. Let’s draw a parallel between the special coaching sessions being given for deserving students by the various state governments for civil service, banks for officer exams among many. I asked the students whether they would have been able to attend such a coaching institute without government support. None of them but one would have attended such an institute.
There are other issues as well
1. All the students of ST category were from one particular community called “Lambadi”
2. The coaching institute treats the students as the lowest ranking guys suitable for less than average quality coaching. They have a separate DRDA section !. This might be different in different campuses.