By Alok Mathur
Neeraj K Pawan, a 2003 batch IAS officer has a knack of being in news. He is the only direct IAS who has been made Divisional Commissioner – that too of the newly created Banswara division, which was a couple of days back part of Udaipur division. Other nine divisions are being helmed by promotee officers.
A secretary level officer, Pawan has been transferred twice within 26 days. He was brought to secretariat as secretary Ayurveda on July 14 after he had spent 21 months in Bikaner – first as commissioner colonisation and then as the divisional commissioner. But it is said that he could not get along well with Ayurveda minister Dr. Subhash Garg and has been again sent to a ‘cold' posting.
Knack of hitting headlines
There was a public protest when Pawan was transferred from Bikaner last month. People wanted his services as divisional commissioner. During his active tenure, he focused on widening of roads in Bikaner and removed encroachment to ease the traffic problem in the city. So much so that a person was caught while attempting to attack Pawan with sword when he (Pawan) was leading an encroachment removal drive. Every day he was in headlines of newspaper's city edition.
A public friendly bureaucrat, Pawan had served as district collector in 4 districts – Pali, Karauli, Dungarpur and Bharatpur. During his tenures as collector, he was known to conducted unscheduled inspections in disguise and would punish officials not performing their duties.
A news about him went viral across the country when he took a brother and sister injured in a road accident to the hospital in his own car while passing by. People in these districts have many anecdotes about his style of working.
In 2015 when Gurjars renewed their quota agitation, the then chief minister Vasundhara Raje sent Pawan as government representative to negotiate with Gurjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla. During his collector's days in Karauli, Pawan had struck good rapport with people in Gurjar dominated Karauli. In seven days' time, Bainsla was having tea with Neeraj K Pawan and Vasundhara Raje on negotiation table.
Controversy chases Pawan
Among all the good work Neeraj has done as an administrator, there are few controversies also linked with his name. In the year 2015 itself, Neeraj was arrested by ACB on bribery charges when he was additional director, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). People say that it was conspiracy of someone to frame Pawan who was doing a good job in the department. After almost 8 months of being in jail, Neeraj returned to bureaucratic mainstream in Gehlot government. Later, again as chairman of Rajasthan Skill and Livelihoods Development Department ( RSLDC ), he was embroiled in corruption case in October 2o21. Since then he has been out of the bureaucratic mainstream but still grabbing news headlines in his own way.
