WALK WITH THE PEOPLE, WOULD YOU, COLLECTOR SAB?
Duvvuri Subbarao, former RBI Governor
(Sub Collector, IAS, Parvathipuram - North - Coastal Andhra, 46 years ago)
writes:
Unless you experience people's lives, as they live them, your understanding will remain secondhand. Fieldwork taught me that experiencing a problem face to face is a lot different from reading about it in a file. Seeing is believing. With this in mind the Telengana CM, RevanthReddy has urged distrct collectors to spend at least ten days every month on field visits. The CM held that if collectors actually "dirtied their hands," welfare impact could well exceed that of hundreds of crores spent on development schemes. The CM is absolutely right in his initiative as it would be the most valuable investment of a district collector's time.
Early in my IAS career, as sub collector of Parvathipuram in north coastal Andhra, I was on a village tour. I had arrived on my first posting with more enthusiasm than experience. The learning curve was steep. The only way to climb it was by touring villages, by jeep when possible, and on foot when that was the only option. As I sat under a neem tree, the headman was explaining why a breach in the irrigation tank, sanctioned months earlier, had still not been repaired. The file in my office recorded the scheme as "under implementation." Villagers laughed when I mentioned that. They said the contractor had disappeared after taking measurements.. The irrigation tank existed only in govt. paperwork.
That was my first exposure to the difference between administration on paper and reality on the ground.
Nearly five decades later, I returned to Parvathipuram on a quiet private visit to see how things had changed. Towards the end of the trip I called on Bhawna, a young IAS officer who was the sub collector, my successor 46 years apart.
As we chatted, I asked how often she toured outside HQ, her reply was candid. "Sir, I'd like to go out more., but I am always on call. But never mind. Administration today is far different from your time. I get to know what's happening from videos my staff send me. I can check any situation, in real time, and confer with all my staff at once. It's more efficient than visiting village by village."
Though she had a point there that Tech has transformed governance, Tech is no substitute for real experience. Observing a situation with your eyes brings context, nuance and empathy that no video clip can convey. When you sit in a village home, walk along a breached irrigation canal or visit a school unannounced you notice things that reports cannot capture.
Wisdom from field experience is the unique value proposition of IAS. It gives the service an edge in senior policy roles over technocrats who have imited field exposure. It is imperative that policies discussed in conference rooms must not be devoid of the human face. If IAS officers retreat into offices, meetings and dashboards they would never have a better sense of what needs fixing.
Development schemes may be designed in secretariats and sanctioned in budgets. But their success or failure is decided on the front lines.
A collector who sits in the office may run an efficient administration.
A clollector who walks the fields, talks to people and sees problems firsthand, will run a meaningful administration.
..........................................................
Excerpts from The Times of India of 27 March 2026
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