Visuals of IAS officer Rahul Kumar riding a bicycle encourage you to get environment friendly and health conscious. The wit with which he responds to social media posts of his followers will make you smile! His works give you hope. Approachable, affable, poet and not-so-conventional bureaucrat of 2011 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, Kumar recently started and has successfully completed ‘Kitaab Daan Abhiyaan’ in his district of posting Purnea, which has the lowest literacy rate in Bihar. Over a year, he has managed to mobilise the local public to collect 1 lakh 30 thousand books and start 237 public libraries which are being run by communities. 

Talking exclusively to Sweta Bharti of Bureaucrats India, Kumar said: “I did my studies from the IGNOU. The books for this course had a quote of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on their cover – “Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances!” This quote got etched in my mind. I believe when people read, it changes them. Even if only five people benefitted from each of these libraries, it will impact the lives of more than 1000 people and will be enough for me.” Read The Full Interview: 

Kitaab Daan Abhiyan was a zero expenditure project completed with the support of people. Please share your experience!

We just acted as the bridge between the haves and have nots. People from outside the district and the state came forward to donate books. On receiving a few calls from the people who are old and can’t move out to donate books, the District Administration started a special vehicle and issued a number. This is how the initiative was launched. To ensure these libraries sustain, we have trained locals to manage them. Committees have been formed and they have been given special training. We are organising activities to ensure public participation.

As DM of Gopalganj in 2015 you helped a widow keep her job as a Mid-Day meal cook in the school. Tell us about this incident. 

In a government school, a widow was employed as a Mid-Day meal cook. The locals objected to that saying that if the children eat food cooked by the widow, it will invite bad omen. The efforts of the school principal had failed. Even when I tried talking to them, they seemed adamant to get the woman replaced. To break their superstition, I asked for the food cooked by her, sat in the school, and ate the food in front of all parents. This pacified them and the cook resumed her job.

During Covid-19, the only oxygen plant in Purnea district broke down. You had to tie up with an oxygen plant in Bhagalpur but even that was interrupted for 24 hours. Purnea had nearly 250 patients on oxygen then. How did you manage?

We were dealing with the situation on a case to case basis. We took the help from other districts and neighbouring state. We reviewed the stock of oxygen. Every cylinder was used judiciously during that time. The situation was such that even people outside the state started flooding social media with SOS. There was panic among people. I thought that rather than leaving it to the people’s speculation, I should give them a clear picture of the situation. I did a tweet updating about the real-time situation. This also helped calm the people and check rumours. Eventually, the crisis was resolved.

You are an avid user of social media platforms, has it helped connect with people?

People are the biggest stakeholders for a bureaucrat. Indian bureaucracy attaches a great deal of importance and seriousness to our people while discharging their duties and responsibilities. Social media is an amazing way to connect with them. I have been active on social media from 2013-14. As an SDM, I used to organize health camps in Mahadalit Tola every week. Popularizing them in the media was not feasible. So we started parallel media, that is, social media to make people aware of this camp. It had a very good impact.

We all also witnessed the power of social media during Covid-19 pandemic. From helping people to get oxygen to everything that could be done for them by using social media was done. When the Janata Curfew was imposed for a day in 2020, I received 414 phone calls. Answering all these phone calls is not possible. This is where social media helps. Whenever I had time, I scrolled through all the grievances received on social media and forwarded them to concerned officials. This helped ease the anxiety of people" he added. 

You also used people’s participation to drive Covid-19 vaccination campaign.How did it help?

Being a district with a low literacy rate, slow rate of development Purnea presented different problems than other developed cities. Our counterparts in metropolitan cities were facing the shortage of vaccine doses. We were having a hard time convincing the people to take vaccines. To resolve this issue, I started a dialogue with religious leaders who in turn convinced their communities to take vaccines. We had to get creative to convince them to get inoculated. Vaccination was affected in flood hit areas. However, we used boats to reach out to every household.

Will you please tell us about challenges being faced by Indian bureaucrats and your personal learning so far?

I have learned during my time in service that despite all shortcomings, we cannot be cynical. There have been instances when the people have refused to acknowledge all the efforts made by us for their benefit. For instance, during floods, we went on a boat to distribute flood relief material. Those who received relief material from our hands denied to have received any such help from us. It is disheartening but I feel we represent that society and we can't let it bring us down. We learn and grow every day in this service.

What are your hobbies?

I jog daily. My hectic routine has not lessened my love for reading. I am a student of literature & I read whenever I have time in my hand.