Chandigarh (Global news) IAS officer and author, Sunil K Gulati who is currently serving the government as Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana marks 36 years of service in Indian Administrative Service. In the span of more than three and a half decades, Mr Gulati has researched and introduced various reforms to streamline the socio-economic policies and basically is a researcher reformer. He is credited to have authored 15 Books, 4 chapters of a book and 28 research papers besides being a speaker on various TV /Youtube shows.
Apart from being a recipient of awards by the LBS Academy he has received numerous accolades such as i)1994 IMM-LIC TOP PROFESSIONAL MANAGER OF THE YEAR AWARD presented by Sh Pranab Mukherjee, then Finance Minister and ii) THE GLOBAL INDIA EXCELLENCE AWARD 1995. presented by Sh Arjun Singh, then HRD Minister and iii) UDYOG RATTAN AWARD 1994 for the revival of the steel PSU of Haryana. iv)President of India’s Census Medal 2004 v) Ch Ranbir Singh Hooda Memorial Award, 2010 for outstanding Social Work on Civil Registration re-engineering. vi) Award from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for presenting paper in Washington USA April 2011 vii) Master Lal Singh Award by Shiva Shakti Yuva Sangh, Sep 2013 for Social Work viii) “PHD Premia Honor for Excellence 2013” for “Innovation in Administrative Reforms and Activities” from Shmt Chandresh Kumari Katoch, Union Minister for Culture on 14th March 2013, ix) Baba Mast Nath Award for Excellence 2015, x) Best State in India, Subscriber Coverage, National Pension System 2016 PFRDA+NPS xi) Sarovar Award, 2018 and xii) Global Agriculture Award 2019 for the Best Animal Husbandry State in India at 5th Global Agricultural Summit, New Delhi. He was the Rotary International Ambassador of Goodwill and Understanding to Argentina in 1998. Mr. Gulati is a National Senior and Junior Science Talent Scholar who had won the Invention Essay contest of NRDC and was a CBSE topper in his batch. He then pursued his B.Tech Mechanical from I.I.T Kanpur, M. Tech (Systems and Management Studies) from IIT Delhi and MBA from IIM Bangalore. Currently, he is doing Ph.D on Long Term Care of the Elderly from IIT Delhi.
As per Sunil K Gulati, Additional Chief Secretary Haryana, "I would recommend the youth to opt for IAS if they sincerely want to serve the nation. The life of an IAS officer is very challenging but it is one of the best ways to contribute to the betterment of the country."
Mr. Gulati and his team have introduced various solutions to ensure the wellbeing of the country. The maiden important project he volunteered was to make Kandi Subdivision in Murshidabad a “Smokeless Subdivision” where under his guidance about 20000 smokeless chullahs were installed in that area. Similarly, in Hissar, he was able to turn a sick state PSU (called Haryana Concast Ltd) around but privatized it as he realized that State was better off with the private intervention. In Bhiwani, as Deputy Commissioner he started the sports nurseries and a huge MARU UTSAV (Desert festival). Later, when he was shifted to Chandigarh, he was with the Health Department where he successfully commenced the Pulse Polio program in 1996. The slogan, "एक भी बच्चा छूट गया सुरक्षा चक्र टूट गया " scripted by him for the campaign was extensively used by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan.
He was credited to have brought down the infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) in Haryana. He found out that the lack of awareness of the usage of safe delivery kits amongst the midwives was leading to a higher rate of IMR and MMR. He immediately started an intensive program to mass train close to 15000 midwives in the usage of safe delivery kits and that immediately brought down the IMR and MMR.
Till 2005, the Rural Birth & Death registration was undertaken through village chowkidars and police stations because of which 14% of households had birth certificates. Mr. Gulati's team volunteered on behalf of the Government of India to re-engineer the Haryana Birth and Death Registration system. He changed the system to make Anganwadi worker the informant through ANM and PHC Registering authority. To popularise the certificates, he engaged the youth from NCC/NSS/NYK to write 28 lakh birth certificates of all children under 10 years and distributed them free, door to door, explaining the significance of the document. Within 18 months 98% of houses had birth certificates and at present, all the households avail this facility. Past B&D Data since 1950 has been uploaded now.
In the capacity of the Census Commissioner, he tried to see closely what system reforms the Nation needed and in 2001 printed an “Agenda for Governance” where the following 7 reforms (out of 10) listed by him which have been were worked upon by the Governments. 1) Healthy Sex Ratio ( Beti Bachao, Beti Padao), 2) Basic Responsibilities (Laldora Mukt Gaon) 3) Swadeshi and Rural Non-Farm Sector (Atamnirbhar Bharat), 4) Hygiene and Toilets (Swachta Abhiyaan) 5) Clean Fuels for Households (Ujjawala Scheme), 6)&7) Functional Literacy, Popularizing Vocational Education ( Skill India ).
The switchover of data entry from manual to the scanning of 20 crore Household schedule forms in the 2001 Census was also piloted by Mr.Gulati. It was his humble contribution to this huge exercise of Census since 1871, which made the Indian census the most comprehensive in the world. On the field, his team trained and motivated 36000 persons to fill up the data accurately, especially on age and work participation of women accurately where the ‘rounding off of age’ data came 2nd best next to Kerala and ‘work participation of women’ trebled. He was awarded the President’s Medal for these activities.
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of Social Security pensions to over 23.7 lakh elderly, widows, and other social security pensioners was a huge challenge that the Haryana Government had tried thrice and failed. So, this time it was a huge challenge as only 15% of villages had brick and mortar banks. With the help of 6 different modes including Post Offices and Vodafone Mpesa, Mr. Gulati and his team succeeded in DBT to 22.2 Lakh pensioner’s accounts even as 1.5 Lakh pensioners were found fake which saved the State Rs 380 Cr p.a.
He had an interesting stint in Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for 3 years as its Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO). He was able to bring a large number of system reforms like public access to historical data of challans, posting and verification of old challans, computerization of DDA accounts, making documents of houses in Chullah tax village bastis and ‘damages parchi’ areas of Nazul Land, Linking EWS allotment system to Adhar, uploading immovable property returns of all staff of DDA, making shops freehold, regularizing space buyers/occupants of shopping complexes, disposal of vacant commercial properties, conversion of old properties, allowing mutation in cases where the agreement to sell was not registered, Punjab migrants cases regularization, tackling unauthorized occupants of DDA flats, Addressing concerns of Elderly in Master Plan and many more.
The acquisition of land for a huge aviation complex at Hissar had been struck up for 4 years. His team was able to hand over 3600 acres of land to civil aviation organization in just one month and the airport was soon got inaugurated in 2019.
In the Forest department, there was a long-standing system of Licensing of wood-based industries. The regulations covered even trees grown on farms and unduly suppressed the demand and hence prices of poplar and eucalyptus remained low. He accepted the challenge and initially gave 1995 licenses instead of 198 proposed earlier and then pushed for delicensing of the wood based industry by Govt of India based on his request which has resulted now in the trebling of prices of Poplar & Eucalyptus to Rs 750 per quintal compared to Rs 250 earlier. The benefit has been noticed nationwide.
Mr. Gulati has not only worked on reform for humans but has worked tremendously for animals. Few realize that due to the heavy weight of the cow or buffalo it is impossible to bring a sick bovine to the hospital or dispensary so the hospital must go to the village. Thus the Mobile Veterinary Vans proposal was mooted in Haryana. The Animal Husbandry Department Haryana was able to become the best state in India due to a large number of steps undertaken by them such as i) Collecting data of each and every 52 lakh large animals with owner details and photos using the HAR PASHU KA GYAN app through 1990 enumerators making it the largest such live database in the World.ii) Implementing FMD+HS Dual Vaccination Programme with Sheetal Teeka ( Live vaccine temperature monitoring App) which has received all approvals and will now be implemented pan-India. Haryana has become the first state in India and perhaps the world to do so, and not a single case has been reported since Dec 2018 so far. iii) Animal Registration was started by making a new Act and over 1.6 lakh animals registered in Haryana, the 1st state in India to do so. iv) Insurance of the largest single livestock herd in the world of over 2.5 lakh livestock insured at the lowest premium in India of only 1.49% p.a. v) In-Vitro Fertilization Laboratory (IVF) project work initiated at LUVAS, Hisar, for production of High Genetic Merit Bovine with the help of sexed embryos, the first time in the State Sector. vi) Work on making prefabricated Government Veterinary Hospitals commenced 1st time in India vii) Sexed semen Project approved by GoI. Sexed semen procured the first time in Haryana. viii) One Time Settlement Scheme for Cess started in Haryana to revive milk plants of the state ix) Pashu Kisan Credit card started in Haryana, 1 Lakh made., x) Started Pashudhan Aushadhi Banks in each Vet. Hospital and Dispensary in the State for 24x7 availability of emergency vet medicines xi) Ayurveda for animals started, 4000 staff trained in Ayush Ethno Veterinary Practices. xii) Started stem cell treatment for animals, 150 Doctors trained for it. xiii) Started Silage and Azolla Demonstration units xiv) launched HAR PASHU KA DHYAN app where OPD Slip and all treatment details will be stored online and all inputs for livestock will be made available at one place.
All this has been possible because what is needed today is EQ (Emotional Quotient) and SQ (Spiritual Quotient) and this shall remain the unique strength of being truly Indian. When their family came from West Punjab, the Gulatis settled in Agra being Radhaswami Satsangis of Dayalbagh. Those spiritual and voluntarism seeds stayed and he volunteered to work with Art of Living for over 20 years to spread their activities in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, H.P., U.P. besides the far away Argentina. He was also involved in organizing the Walk of Hope of Sri M in 2016-17 in Haryana and Chandigarh and regularly tries to catch up on the spiritual practices as also keep it a matter of daily routine. The Jindals and the Ruias wanted him to join them in the early 1990s but he chose on to stick to his Government job that paid one tenth the salary offered, as he felt that he wanted to make a difference to the Nation. For the same reason, at IIT Kanpur he chose not to go to USA or TELCO who selected him from campus. His father was clear that all children must stand on our own feet after 21 yrs of age and he made sure that he had a scholarship after he finished his B.Tech and topped GATE Entrance exam for that. After M.Tech he took a Bank P.O job in S.B.B.J for 3 months till he got into the IAS Academy so as to buy his kit for IAS Academy. After 11th class he went door to door selling agarbattis & soaps so as to earn enough to stand on his own feet.
While leading the Youth Leadership Training Program team of International Association for Human Values (IAHV) of the ‘Art of Living Foundation’ he realized that giving youth the right direction can make so much of a difference to the Nation. That is when he set up an NGO which started in 1997 as Aids Prevention Foundation of India and later became AAPSI. The NGO Aapsiindia.org now distributes 12 crore flower saplings every year to over 6000 schools and public institutions in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chandigarh besides to all the Jails and public offices in Haryana under the leadership of Dr Ramji Jaimal. The NGO has also under leadership of Sh Shyam Sunder Sharma prompted over 5 Lakh people to take oath against female foeticide and promoted doing similar functions for birth of girl child as are done for male child, like Kuan poojan, Thali Bajana, Tree plantation etc. A project for making Tactile Geometry Box for the visually challenged is underway with patented technology a first of its kind in the world by Sh Anupam Garg. Next the NGO is planning a big foray into Caregiving for the elderly through skill development of Geriatric Care-givers. His wife Renuka Sondhi Gulati is a renowned Painter Sculptor and donates a percentage of her arts sale to the NGO AAPSI regularly.
As an honest public servant, he strives to serve the country with full honesty and use his acumen to introduce researched reforms and teamwork which will uplift the society. His suggestions to the youngsters wanting to join the services is do not presume that you know all. Do proper research and then answer the political executive rather than saying what would please them. At least be aware of the plus and minus side of each decision you propose for those at the tail end of society. He says that in IAS one cannot say that God did not give him a chance to serve. Also, there is so much of a variety that one does not get bored and can actually create synergies using the linkages. What one achieved with that chance is a separate issue. He affirms that spiritual strength is the key to not only survival but also detecting the gaps and working out the right ways to fill them up. So, while he did have my ups and downs, he does not have any regret of the 36 years he spent in IAS and would recommend the career to anyone who really wants to serve the Nation. He concludes that to make money, go to Corporate sector, but to do Sewa, IAS is the place. But one must be sure that there is a price to pay and one must not expect an easy life in IAS either.