Secretary |Ministry of Women and Child Development | Government of India
Mr. Ram Mohan Mishra, Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Women and Child Development. He has over 30 years of experience as an Indian Administrative Service officer having worked in the field of General Administration, MSMEs & SMEs, Mines and Minerals, Programme Implementation, Planning, Banking and Institutional Finance, Revenue, Environment & Forests, Water Resources, Commerce & Industry, Personnel Management, Home Affairs, Land Revenue, etc. He is a Law Graduate, Masters in Geography and has studied Public Finance at Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He has been CEO of a Government company working for promoting and facilitating inclusive growth, entrepreneurship development, climate change adaptation and sustainable development.
- ‘Meghalaya basin-development model’ is recognized at global arena with Prime Minister of India often expressing the state’s success in his speeches. You have been behind the state flagship program ‘Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion (IBDLP)’ under various capacities, could you highlight your experiences?
When one is in the government, one has the opportunity for looking at long term plans which need immediate action. Meghalaya is a bio-sensitive state. It is rich in forests, minerals, and water. Therefore, when we explored about how we can bring more livelihood opportunities to the people of the state, it was amply clear to us that we had to take a more holistic view. Since nature was in abundance in the state, we were focused on building livelihoods in partnership with nature. We also wanted to make sure that we brought opportunities to the people in a manner where people were able to realize their aspirations through their own enterprise.
Meghalaya is one of the wettest places on earth. Water is at the center of its life and culture. Hence, we came up with the idea of a Basin. A basin that symbolizes the life nourishing qualities of water and its power of transformation. The Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion (IBDLP) started with no allocations for it – financial or human resource ones. In the government generally, we focus on making sure that an idea or a program is assigned adequate funds and people before it hits the road. But Basin was an unchartered territory. We asked people from different departments to give their time on voluntary basis. That meant they had their day jobs in their respective government functions and then in the evenings and weekends they convened for Basin’s work. It was not a call of duty; it was a call of passion.
We kept ourselves open to all kinds of ideas. People from within and outside the government worked side by side with no personal agenda except that they believed in the idea that people needed to be given support and understanding to realize their dreams through their own enterprise. And that enterprise needed to be in partnership with nature with sustainable means. Initially, we found a lot of pessimists but as people understood more and participated more, we saw a sea change.
Young boys and girls joined the Basin program as contract employees and in a span of a few years we had more than 300 of them working with us. They brought youthful energy, ideas and impatience for action. Professionals and experts from different fields came on board as volunteers and gave their time pro-bono to help us move forward. Government officials and district personnel joined our development marathon willingly.
We never pushed the program on anyone. Not the people, who we said were our partners and not beneficiaries, nor the government officials who were our enablers. The program was based on the premise that everyone who came to knock on its doors came out of their own wish. This is a different experience in the government as generally government programs are supply side driven and pushed out. We relied on a pull approach. And it worked. Slowly but surely people moved and reached out and a program of the government became the people’s program.
- IBDLP has weaved an innovative entrepreneurial culture in Meghalaya especially among women, youth and the tribal communities. What is your opinion regarding this?
IBDLP was designed to capture the voice of every person from every stratum. It was designed for inclusion. Meghalaya is home to proud tribes. They are extremely committed to their traditions as people. One of their traditions has been to live in partnership with nature. Therefore, it was in a way easier to explain to them how they can be entrepreneurs by working in sync with nature. Apiculture took off in a big way because it brought bees back. Nurseries came up at villages and so did a focus on aquaculture. We had 7000 plus green volunteers at village level who were committed to transforming livelihoods through environmentally sustainable ways.
We had many young people, especially in our cities who took on the role of connecting the produce of the village entrepreneurs to markets. They, along with our young force of workers mapped entrepreneurs at village level.
The culture of Meghalaya has a special place for women. It is a matrilineal society, and so we could not have done much without the support from women. They came out in big support. Many took long journeys to attend workshops and classes for skills as diverse as financial literacy to pottery making and smoking fish. They believed in us and that made all the difference.
- The entire globe is vocal for localization of Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to realize the socio-economic goals. Do you express your support for tailoring of SDGs, especially at ground zero?
It is not about voicing support for the SDGs. The 17 SDGs are reflective of the challenges and opportunities human society has. And so, there is no debate that they must be actualized for the betterment of the whole world. They can only be achieved if people in their everyday life are able to experience them and achieve them. That is when they have real meaning. IBDLP program was about creating a plethora of opportunities for people on the ground to call upon their individual enterprise for the collective sustainable goals. Our job in the government was to create a platform that made this possible.
- A ‘New India by 75’ cannot be envisaged without ‘Atma-Nirbhar aspirations. Can you throw some light as to how effectively MSMEs aspirations can form the backbone of country’s economy, especially in the light of COVID-19 pandemic?
MSMEs are the backbone of every nation. Let’s look around the globe, even in highly developed economies like the United States; it is the small businesses that lead the way for growth and employment. In the IBDLP program we learnt that if you power the micro enterprises with timely knowledge, finance and market access inputs, they can surge in growth at great speed. COVID-19 pandemic has in fact been a good reminder on the importance of MSMEs. It has made us understand that without an effective and result oriented MSME ecosystem, we cannot achieve real growth or recovery.
- In your opinion how effective are grassroots based organizations in last mile delivery, so that no one is left behind specially the underprivileged section of the society?
In the IBDLP program we were fortunate to work with many grassroots-based organizations that brought much needed understanding and reach to the entire endeavor. Many of these organizations brought perspective on inclusion and equity and they also kept us on track as far as on ground progress was concerned. Some pitched in with awareness building and others with knowledge input. But without them we would have not been able to make the progress we made. These organizations have a pulse of local people and their aspirations and working them allowed us to understand local needs better.
- What is the role of public-private collaboration for transformative programs like IBDLP?
For anyone to think from either public or private sector that they can achieve transformation on their own would be a misplaced notion. Public sector has its own strengths in terms of access, reach, convening power and resources. Private sector has its own capabilities in knowledge, technology, enterprise, and ideas. When you marry the two and work together, you can do wonders. We personally experienced this in the Basin program. It was the collaboration of public and private efforts that co-created a new reality of people on the ground in Meghalaya.
- How effective is the role of Multilateral institutions in large scale grassroots programs as IBDLP?
The multilateral institutions bring much needed resources for ambitious projects like IBDLP. But it is not just the financial resources that they bring. Because of their work in multiple countries, they also bring immense knowledge about best practices, what works and what does not and also benchmark of success and impact. They bring the science of development in terms of measurement of effort and impact. Their role is critical because they help in a process of learning and sharing between governments and people from across the world.
