: In Tribute: The Little Known Padma Shri IAS Hero Who Transformed Rural Nagaland #IndiaNEWS #Civil Servants On the morning of 18 April 2021, India lost Achyut Madhav Gokhale, one of the country’s

In Tribute: The Little Known Padma Shri IAS Hero Who Transformed Rural Nagaland #IndiaNEWS #Civil Servants
On the morning of 18 April 2021, India lost Achyut Madhav Gokhale, one of the country’s finest Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, to COVID-19 in Pune. Suffice it to say, his loss was felt personally by the people of Nagaland, whom he served with distinction in different capacities, including as Chief Secretary.
(Image above of the late AM Gokhale and his wife Savita courtesy R. Kevichusa and Twitter/Nitin A. Gokhale)
“Shri Gokhale was an exceptional officer, an optimist, a true leader, and a thinker par excellence who, during his more than three decades of service in the Indian Administrative Service, brought about revolutionary changes. In Nagaland, he developed the concept of the Village Development Board [VDB] which decentralised development to the village level, much before the Panchayati Raj institutions were brought in the rest of the country,??? said Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, in an official statement released to the press.
That’s just one of many contributions Gokhale made to the people of Nagaland. As the chief minister concludes, “he will always remain in the hearts of the people of Nagaland???. Passing away at the age of 75, his work remains an example to IAS officers to this day.
For representational purposes only. (Image courtesy Kohima District)
A Visionary
Before joining the IAS, Gokhale served in the Indian Navy (1966-1973) as a short service commissioned officer. Serving in its Missile Boat squadron, which saw action in the 1971 War, he was mentioned in dispatches for his contributions.
He joined the IAS in 1973 after his stint in the Indian Navy and was allotted the Nagaland cadre with 1968 given as the Year of Allotment. It didn’t take him time to make his mark in the service. As the Deputy Commissioner of Phek district, Gokhale pioneered the concept of ‘Village Development Board’ (VDB)—a statutory body, functioning under the primary village authority known as the Village Council—in Ketsapomi village under the district in 1976.
“The Village Development Board is a mechanism for decentralisation of planning and development at the grassroots level at its best. It includes all the permanent residents of the village as its members functioning under a management committee with a Secretary who is elected democratically for three years. Besides women are to constitute 25% of the total of the management committee. This is a novel scheme of development as the locals understand their needs better and can effectively articulate and implement developmental activities better,??? notes anthropology scholar Robert Angkang Shimray in this paper titled Decentralization from Below: A Case Study of Nagaland, India.

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