Vote of Thanks

Secretary,ARPG & Pensions

21^st April, 2008 at 1100 hrs.

Hon’ble Prime Minister

Hon’ble Minister of Communications & Information Technology

Hon’ble Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions

Cabinet Secretary

Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister

Secretary (Posts)

Secretaries to the Union Government, Chief Secretaries of States, Administrators of Union Territories

Distinguished guests

Media representatives

Participants

Ladies & Gentlemen      

It is my proud privilege to propose a Vote of Thanks to the Hon’ble Prime Minister who has always accorded the highest priority to reforms and innovation in administration. His presence on this occasion is inspirational. We are extremely grateful to him to have acceded to our request for inaugurating the event and giving away the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration.  I, on my behalf and on behalf of all the services present here, extend our grateful thanks to him for his support and encouragement: I assure you Sir, that all the civil servants would work as a team to meet the expectations of the citizen and would contribute towards making Government more vibrant, proactive and responsive.

I also extend my sincere thanks to the Minister of Communications & Information Technology for having graced the occasion with his presence.

            We are grateful to the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions for his presence and words of encouragement. We look forward to your able guidance in our future endeavors. I thank you for your kindness and support.

            My heartfelt thanks to the Cabinet Secretary for his stewardship, support, vision and commitment for the Civil Service Day. Sir, your continuous monitoring, guidance and suggestions have made it possible to organize this grand function today.

            I wish to thank the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister for his unstinted support for this function.

            I would like to thank all our honoured guests for their presence and participation today.

            Here today and gone tomorrow – that is the civil servant. Today has taken decades of dedicated hard work to reach – we have seen so many retire and pass through the civil service; and we, in our lives, would have been touched by the lives and work of some of them.  On behalf of them all, both past and present, thank you for the interest you have taken and the passing on of your knowledge.  It is just a small, indication of the respect that we have for our seniors and for the amount of work they put in.

I thank all the Secretaries to the Government of India, the Chief Secretaries, all the Heads of the Services and all the other officers for their kind presence on this occasion.

            I would like to thank our knowledge partners for preparing the Theme Papers for the panel discussions.  I would fail in my duty if I do not put on record my deep appreciation for the writers of articles in the just released book ‘Splendour in the Grass’ and panelists of the panel discussions for their valuable contribution.  It is this treasure which would keep the memories of this Day alive.

            We owe special gratitude to the officials of the DAVP, Doordarshan, NIC, CPWD, ITDC, the audio-visual staff, Vigyan Bhawan staff, volunteers and officials who have worked hard to ensure that this occasion becomes a memorable success.

            I would like to thank my Department staff for all the hard work to structure and execute this event.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank the members of the media, for evincing interest in covering the event.

            Thank you one and all.  Thanks for coming.