And this one’s for India!

Maintain a good reputation with your bosses, but at the same time, maintain order.

CHENNAI : Maintain a good reputation with your bosses, but at the same time, maintain order. Try and hold on to serve for the public,” says former chief secretary P Sabanayagam, revealing his success mantra, on the eve of the release of his book Service to the Nation. Sabanayagam started his career as a Commissioner officer in Artillery in 1943 at the age of 21. He later served as Private Secretary to the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, C Rajagopalachari (1952), Collector of Salem (1953), Deputy Textile Commissioner (1955), Joint Secretary Steel (1969) and Chief Secretary to the TN government (1971) among other bureaucratic posts.

In a tete-a-tete with CE, he shared a few excerpts from his book. “It was in 1943 at Deolali camp near Nashik, and I was in artillery. During one of the firing exercises, I had to instruct three sergeants to adjust their fire to 2,800 metres. While I told two of them, I did not have time to go to the other officer and the Captain had already called for fire.

The third sergeant set it at 1,800 metres and the bullet landed just 50 metres ahead of the Captain. Angered by this, he immediately asked for my detainment. But between all the chaos, they received a letter from the central government recommending me for the post of Lieutenant as I was performing well and so, I could avert the detainment,” shared Sabanayagam, who has served in the Indian army.

During his tenure as Collector in Salem, he realised that there was no place for non-gazetted officers to stay in Salem during their visits. “I arranged a show of the famous comedian NS Krishnan and with the money we collected through the tickets, I built a place for non-gazetted officers inside the Collector’s campus.” Sabanayagam was the Chief Secretary when M Karunanidhi was the chief minister and he 
describes this period as an exciting one.

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