Having done his graduation from Ravenshaw College, Manoj Parida picked up his Masters in International Affairs from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, the Law degree from Goa and the Management degree from Kolkata University. With 24 long years in the IAS, Parida stumps you straight when he gives you a lowdown of the number of projects that his department has embarked upon today for the betterment of senior citizens, handicapped and marginalized women and children. No wonder, Parida is set to prove all clichés wrong and defy the stereotyped image label that Government de-partments generally carry. And before giving us a peek into the proposals, he says with a smile, “Let me tell you that the projects are no more on paper, the process of executing them has already started. Three flagship projects in my whole work-range include:
1. Mission Convergence
“The whole idea was to prepare an authentic social register based on a door-to-door survey for building a master list of 5.15 lakh poor beneficiary families and to give them unique identity cards. Forty-six cash transfer schemes of the Delhi Government have been brought under one umbrella, called Mission Convergence. This is happening for the first time ever in the country and the concept will benefit poor beneficiaries in various ways. There won’t be any hassles of paperwork or running around from one department to another and money will be directly deposited in the accounts of the beneficiaries.”
2. Laadli
“This scheme is exclusively for the girl child .At the birth of a girl child, the Government opens a bank account in her name and deposits Rs 10,000 in it. The Government further deposits Rs 5,000 when she joins school and also each time the girl passes Class VI, IX, X and XII examinations. On reaching 18 years of age she is given Rs 1 lakh maturity amount credited directly to her account. The success of this scheme has changed the sex ratio in the national capital.
3. Conditional Cash Transfer
“Based on the Brazilian model, we intend following a mix of carrot and stick policy. The Government will not only reward good steps but also punish bad practices, particularly in the health and education sectors. We will give a certain amount of money to the poor par-ents, as incentive or carrot when they put their children in schools. The moment we find that they are misusing the money, or they have stopped sending their children to school we will stop rolling the moolah. In this way, it also acts as a stick.”
As he signs off, Parida says, “I wish to remove cynicism that people have about govern-ment schemes in general and bureaucrats in particular.”
