SV Prasad - A Civil Servant par excellence

IN my association with the Civil Services over the last four decades, I came across many competent, positive, hardworking and self-effacing civil servants but only one professional who has combined all those qualities and many more in himself. It was Sigatapu Veera Prasad or SV Prasad who passed away this morning following a brain surgery for post-Corvid complications.

He was Chief Secretary of the undivided Andhra Pradesh ten years ago and later its Chief Vigilance Commissioner after a remarkable career spanning about thirty five years, one half of which would do credit to the best of civil servants! In all these years, not many saw Prasad without a welcome smile on his face! You also hardly came across a person - common man or VIP -who came away unsatisfied after a meeting with him!

As Collector of the two most prestigious districts, Nellore and Visakhapatnam, his services to the people of these districts and the enormous goodwill he spread by his positive attitude to the people who met him and the enduring affection they retain for him, are well known!

Prasad was chosen in 1991 by then Chief Minister Janardhan Reddy to run the Chief Ministers Office (CMO), which a much senior civilian found it tiresome to run, Prasad came to be identified with the CMO and laid down thus-far-and-no-further rules for the Office. As the head of the CMO, he chose a dedicated team and made it an effective tool to push the priorities of the incumbent government and to help support all good causes with a bearing on people's welfare.

He ran the CMO taking care to ensure that it would not supplant the departments of the Government and the people working there would use their clout to promote effective functioning of the departments rather than push their agenda as it often happens. Whenever there was a divergence between the views of the Ministers and the senior civil servants, he strove to find the common ground and helped reconcile the two views in such a way that neither felt lost out. This was possible because Prasad knew both the vanities of the politician and the limitations of the Civil Servant. In situations that strained his resource, he employed his fine sense of humor to resolve an issue or to make light of a contention!

Prasad worked with Chief Ministers of rival political parties at a time when political debate was degenerating into personal acrimony and yet retained a working relationship with all of them in and out of office. There was no occasion where a Chief Minister gave up on him because he had recently worked closely with his rival. It was unthinkable that anyone would doubt his loyalty or ability for keeping confidence! And this in the face of sporadic campaigns by some of his ambitious colleagues who wanted to replace him in the CMO for power or pelf!

An engineer by training, he was in the IIM doing his MBA when he qualified for the IAS and left his management studies halfway. Judging by his remarkable career one wonders whether IIMs would have had anything to teach him or whether they would do well to study his remarkable career to understand the determinants of success of an executive!

After his retirement, Prasad was missed in the Secretariat by the people who went there for help, by the ministers for his competent professional advice and by his colleagues for his affability and sense of humor! Now that he has left us! would like to tell him 'My friend, you did well by your profession and I wish there were more of your kind!'

(The author is ex-Indian Police Service officer and former DGP)