Thread by @naukarshah

It's been six months since I joined here in Dadra & Nagar Haveli as Collector along with a few other charges. Though a relatively small district, I can't but admit that this has been a real challenging 6 months. Could survive only due to extensive use of technology. <Thread>

Responsibility varies from running a 2000 Cr Discom, to addressing malnutrition challenges, to land acquisition & completion of infrastructure projects, to listening to grievances & ensuring public service delivery. Being a single district UT, secretariat & field services merge.

Well, most of the officers in small UTs hold many such charges & deliver exceedingly well. But coming from holding just the Collector charge in Aizawl, this was really overwhelming for me.

And I was extensively dependent on two platforms, @SlackHQ & @google #sheets to keep a grip on the very many things flying around me.

They are both free, though I fear after this thread they both might charge me heavily.

Learning that being a secretary means dealing with a lot of daks & responding to them. Else there will be reminders, reminders on reminders, DOs (friendly ones) and then DOs to your bosses (threatening ones). This dak monitoring google sheet helps to keep track to an extent.

But being a collector means meeting people, hearing them out, and attempting to resolve their grievances. I keep a visitor's list sheet to keep track of the grievances & to follow up. Also helps embarrass myself that a person has come 4 times & his issues not yet resolved.

Well, commissioner VAT & GST are interesting charges. We have to focus on the revenue and how to improve it, while at the same time ensure that refunds are processed in timely manner so as to not block working capital of industries. Getting a grip early is important.

Then there are the traditional Collector works. Ensuring land revenue work, timely certificate issuance, land acquisitions, land record modernization, forest rights etc. We are doing some experiments of our own in these sectors.

Then of course the social welfare charge. The most interesting & impactful of all considering that DNH is one of the most malnourished territory in the country. The NNM could really be the game changer with provision of sufficient manpower & technology.

The Discom, DNHPDCL has been a really challenging task. But very happy to share that we have considerably reduced losses last year and are sure of turning profitable this year. Trying to instill a company culture.

With close to 4000 industries, labour is one department which is very very tricky. A balancing act so as to ensure industrial peace while ensuring maximum benefits to the labour. I am often torn between conflicting thoughts while dealing with this sector. Also there's this BoCW.

Pollution Control Committee. Well well well! :)
We have now moved completely to online consent management. This was before that.

Then there are the important infrastructure projects. Had to learn a lot of civil engineering stuff to make sense of it. Now I may be asking blunder questions, but at least would be using all the right terms. :)

Many such sheets. And all of it maintained & updated by respective team members.

Have to say, I am amazed at the speed with which the staff welcomed & adopted these simple, cost effective interventions.

So a big shout out to the staff at DNH, the @SlackHQ & the #GoogleSheets