Gone are the days when civil servants would command respect necessarily attached with their position, filled with authority, conceit, power and of course the ‘Lal Batti’! Most of the breed believes in maintaining a safe distance deliberately from the commoners, but Nidhi Khare.
The IAS officer of 1992 batch has flown to her new assignment as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi after serving at State level in Personnel Department, Health Department and donning the glove of the spokesperson of Jharkhand Government, taking some fabulous memories back in her mind.
“We are Government servants and serving people is our job. But if I am remembered for my job after my departure from here then I am grateful to the people of the State. It is a kind of bonus of me,” says Nidhi Khare expressing her mind in a freewheeling chat with The Pioneer on Monday just before she handed over the charge of Principal Secretary of Health Department to Nitin Madan Kulkarni for her new stint at the Center.
What are the thoughts coming to her mind before joining the Union Home Ministry? “I don’t plan much in advance. It would be useless to speculate about the assignment because there is big difference between perception and reality. What I perceive from here may be entirely different from what I receive,” said the upright officer who during her brief stay at the Health Department made her mark by improving state of affairs at RIMS, improving condition of Sadar Hospitals, regulating the Department and lining up new medical colleges coming up in Jharkhand.
“It is continuum. What I was passed on was not without any substance and what I am going to hand over now is also substantial. Someone else would take this forward for the betterment of the society. I am a happy person to see institutions which we all contributed growing every day. Status of institution is larger than individuals. I am feeling satisfied with the makeover of RIMS that started reasserting its status of the premier medical institution of the State. People have started coming here with belief and trust. But what I also feel that lot more could have been done,” she says with a sense of satisfaction on her face.
Nidhi Khare while naming some of the firsts RIMS scored in recent times like cornea transplant, cochlear implant, open-heart surgery while recalling her efforts in the way of initialising medical colleges at Palamu and also AIIMS, Deoghar.
“I knew there are challenges in getting land for buildings and getting faculties. But what could have been done is to start classes at makeshift premises, getting some good faculties engaged and initiate steps to produce 6000 doctors from 1200 in five years time. This is being done and I am lucky to get assistance from the Prime Minister Office and also from the authorities in the State,” said the outgoing official.
She at length also talked about modifying the mindsets of the doctors towards common people. “What I suggest to make ‘Dignity of Treatment’ a part of medical curriculum. We are in the service sector where mostly troubled, poor and pained people come to us with great amount of hope and belief. That should be respected at all cost. Pleasant behavior with a pinch of humanity is incumbent upon the the doctors that can respect the dignity of the patients coming to them,” Nidhi Khare concludes without hiding her emotions to the people of the State when she desires to come back to Jharkhand whenever any opportunity is thrown at her.
Khare’s better half, Amit Khare, is Union Information and Broadcasting Secretary in Delhi.
