The author discovered his true worth and those of many others as well. Life as no-more-a-civil-servant is turning out to be even better. The excitement is still there, with only one significant difference: that he is master of his own time. I spent sleepless nights in the sheer excitement of the potential.” He feels now that not much seems to have changed even after retirement. In the preface to the first book, No More a Civil Servant, he had written, “There was so much to be done, so much that one could do and so much excitement. He also reflects on his association with his batch of 1981 in the Indian Administrative Service, recalling it as a wonderfully vibrant batch. The first part of the book is a reflection on events that happened around the author during the last few years of his service, as he looks back on his interactions with the Prime Minister and the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office. His first two books are Not Just a Civil Servant and Ethical Dilemmas of a Civil Servant. Lessons were learned from the mistakes of the previous government.No more a Civil Servant is the concluding part of the trilogy authored by a former civil servant who served for almost 38 years in various capacities in the government. How true it was! Yes, we were told very clearly that PMO should not be mentioned in any decision the Ministry/Department takes. “In a subsequent meeting at the PMO, when the issue came up for discussion again, and I referred to the note that I had sent, I was given a dressing down that the PMO does not take decisions. Ultimately, he had to send a note to the Principal Secretary raising certain issues and questioning why coal should be supplied at a notified price to such entities granting undue favour or preferential treatment to them when there is no legal or contractual obligation. He writes how in almost every meeting convened by the PMO, whether relating to coal or otherwise, he was asked if he had provided linkages to some ‘privileged’ industrialists. He complained that the PMO was not kept informed.”Īnd as coal production substantially increased, so did the pressure to accommodate some industrialists.

“When the call from Shri Mishra came, I had expected a few words of praise from him as well. The transparency he ensured in the coal block auctions and its success found prominence in newsrooms and news reels, but when the call came from the PMO, it was not on expected lines.

NOT JUST A CIVIL SERVANT by Anil Swarup