GUWAHATI: An Assam civil services aspirant on Friday got a first-hand experience of how a District Magistrate (DM) functions, reminiscing the 2001 “cult classic” ‘Nayak: The Real Hero’ which features Anil Kapoor showing the actor as chief minister for a day.
As part of a day-long ‘DM’s orientation’, Mrinmoy Kalita visited various branches of the district administration such as administrative, personnel, district disaster management authority, magistracy, election, land acquisition, food and civil supplies, revenue, excise etc.
He attended a meeting on road safety and another with senior officials of the administration. Furthermore, he inspected an operational scheme of the public health engineering department, undertook field visits and interacted with the public.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma fulfilled the dream of Kalita, who teaches science at the Assamese medium Jatiya Bidyalaya at Phuloguri in the district. At Sarma’s direction, the district authorities organised the day-long orientation for Kalita.
“I thank the chief minister sir and the district administration for giving me this opportunity. I have a dream to serve the society as a civil servant and I am working towards this end. I am very happy to get this opportunity,” Kalita told the media.
He said he got to learn how the administrative branches of a district work. “Civil services give you a platform to work for the people. You get connected to them directly,” he added.
Varnali Deka, the Nalbari DM, told The New Indian Express that Kalita had written to Sarma expressing the desire to get a first-hand experience of how a DM functions.
“He had sought a DM’s orientation. We received a direction from the honourable chief minister three days ago to organise the programme for him (Kalita),” Deka said.
“We provided him an orientation on what all works that the branches at a DM’s office do. We also organised his interactions with the public. We tried to give him as much as we could,” she said.
She was confident that such awareness activities will encourage more students of Nalbari and the state to aim for a career in the civil services.