Page 8 - 7-Issue_Tata_Water_Mission
P. 8
FroM neWbie to
knoW-All
Maitree Ganguli competently handles the challenges of her first job,
as a prerak , to bring about lasting social change in Bokaro district of
Jharkhand
I knew nothing
when I landed here
about how processes
and governance
systems work and
how efforts are
channelised and
basic lacunae are
addressed.”
Maitree Ganguli
prerak, Bokaro
Jharkhand
A first job is intimidating — more so winning the national Swachhta Hi Sewa award
for constructing the most number of toilets for
when you are put into the thick of
things and asked to take charge. disabled persons to rigorous field visits without
This was the case with 27-year-old Maitree leaves or holidays.” Luckily, she found a well-
Ganguli, when she started her tenure as a oiled official machinery working smoothly to
prerak in Bokaro district, after being selected achieve Swachh Bharat Mission’s (SBM) goals
from the campus for the Zila Swachh Bharat when she landed in Bokaro.
Prerak programme — she was studying for her However, there was no feedback system
postgraduate degree in regulatory governance in place. Maitree took on the housekeeping
at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. challenge and organised training on
Maitree had started working in her family’s maintaining Google Sheets. Live data update
business soon after graduating in production on SBM parameters was initiated and cross-
engineering from the Haldia Institute of verified. Soon, information was made readily
Technology. Her first job, as a prerak, was a available on a system so robust that it was
life-transforming experience for Maitree. unaffected by a person’s absence.
In her words, “It has been quite an To further secure the system, review
adventure — from the excitement of Bokaro meetings were initiated, in which, block
8 TATA WATER MISSION - A Tata Trusts Initiative