Sanjib Kumar Roy
Port Blair, July 07: That was on June 30 2013 evening, when a news agency broke the news of appointment of new Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, very unexpectedly.
Everyone felt that the former Lt. Governor will continue atleast till the 2014 elections for obvious reasons and all of a sudden, just a few months before the Lok Sabha elections, change of guards, was totally unexpected.
Soon social media flooded with information, whatever available about Lt. Gen (Retd.) A K Singh. People starting scanning google image for a picture of their new Lt. Governor, so did all journalists for their next day’s front page story.
As a ritual, the outgoing Lt. Governor left these Islands one day ahead of arrival of Lt. Gen (Retd.) A K Singh. 8 July 2013 was the swearing in ceremony and everyone was excited to witness the swearing in ceremony. People who were not invited for the prestigious function, felt as if they are untouchable and every big shots were inside Raj Niwas.
Although social media flooded with reports of appointment of new Lt. Governor, people were somewhere asking one single question “Why Another Army Officer?”. In past these Islands have seen many retired Army Officers as Lt. Governor and appointment of yet another Retired Army Officer somewhere disappointed Islanders.
But as days passed by people started connecting themselves with the Lt. Governor, Lt. Gen (Retd.) A K Singh, the first few were perhaps from social media, twitter.
The Lt. Governor started tweeting and more and more people started following him. There were question answer sessions, heated arguments, clarifications, advisories and what not. But one could reach to the Lt. Governor with just one message and get a reply to, which never happened in past.
The achievement of the present Lt. Governor is the ability to connect to the common man, not only in twitter but also personally. Lt. Gen (Retd.) A K Singh kept his doors open for common man, there are dozens and dozens of people with whom the Lt. Governor met personally while there are thousands with whom he interacted directly, a trend, which was missing in Raj Niwas since a long long time.
One could see the Lt. Governor cycling at Marina area or playing cycle polo with children in college ground. He interacts with everyone with an open heart sometimes like a school boys, leaving behind the cloud of being Lt. Governor.
Those who were against him in some issues also slowly understood his intensions and supported him in his Endeavour.
Another major achievement of present Lt. Governor is the ability to give new life to almost dead projects, which were put in the cold box since last more than a decade. He has not only brought dead projects to the table but has also set a deadline for execution of every project.
A Lt. Governor in top gear has made it difficult for many departments and top officials to keep up the pace.
Basically very lonely, without family, in the massive Raj Niwas the Lt. Governor presently works for more than 12 – 15 hours. Even a hairline fracture on his right legs little finger did not stop him from walking several kms to inspect pearl culture lab at North Bay or from meeting several Ministers at New Delhi with Bag full of Andaman’s problem.
Changes are visible but Islanders are still waiting for complete results, which Lt. Gen (Retd.) A K Singh must deliver to the Islanders.
Meeting and listening from everyone is important but somewhere, the Lt. Governor must also learn to use both the ears in some cases or the case of review and re-review and re-re-review will pile up and no project will ever see light of the day.
Islanders have been living in this status-quo culture for several decades and everyone desperately wants to see output and hopefully with the present system of governance the Lt. Governor will be able to deliver some results very soon. Hope the Status-quo culture will not infect the Lt. Governor, hope review and re-review orders will not become a chain reaction and yield no results for us.
I am very agreed with you.