Page 4 - MGMG July to December 2019 Special Issue

2018, the mission also aimed at sensitising both the recently-elected representatives of PRI and people
about various welfare programmes and schemes of the government including the getting the valuable
feedback of the public for making the functioning of the democratic institutions as vibrant and
meaningful institutions for governance.

While inaugurating and unveiling the programme, the Chief Secretary, B.V.R Subrahmanyam said
“Back to the Village program has been conceived with the notion that developmental initiatives that are
built on the feedback and cooperation of the people are more result oriented and have greater probability
to succeed than those which are top down.” But this was not an easy task. The government had never
attempted a government-public interface programme of this sheer size and scale in Jammu and Kashmir
so it not only looked a Herculean Task but also seemed impossible and implausible given the law and
order problems in the valley. No wonder then that there were many naysayers and cynics when the
programme was first conceived.

However, determined to reach out to public at the grassroots, the government went ahead with the
programme. The designated officers not only visited the remotest villages and Panchayats which had
never before been visited by government functionaries, leave alone senior gazette officer, these officers
also braved a visit to some of the difficult and challenging areas of the militancy-affected districts of
south Kashmir. And the response was overwhelming and heart-warming. The people who otherwise felt
alienated came out in droves to welcome the visiting officers, share their views and post their grievances
directly to the officers.

The „Back to Village? programme not only achieved the feat of moving the administration and
administrative officers at the doorsteps of the villagers to redress their problems but also also reaffirmed
the trust and faith of the public in the government shattering a number of myths in the process. As Abdul
Hamid Dar, a resident of Block B.K. Pora, District Budgam remarked that their village had a vexed
issue of getting their water bodies de-silted which were choked due to the excessive amount of sand, silt,
polythene etc. “We had travelled pillar to post in this regard but nobody had registered our genuine
grievance, but during this campaign it was duly recorded by the authorities who had visited our village
for two days.”

As it turned out, the initiative was an unqualified success. In fact so overwhelming was the response of
the people that practically every visiting officer was accorded an extremely warm and affectionate
welcome. In fact, such was the enthusiasm generated by the programme that a resident of Shopian

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