PROFESSIONS, CHECKERED CAREER,
AND LESSONS-PART ELEVEN
(From Librarian to CPRO to CM KCR)
A Journey from Khangi School to
Center for Excellence
Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
Prefatory Note
(These reflections arise from close
observation and lived experience during a defining phase in the history of
Telangana. They are offered with deep respect for Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar
Rao, a leader of rare intellectual depth, political courage, and unwavering
commitment to the idea of Telangana. What follows is not merely recollection,
but an attempt to record how vision, resolve, and governance converged to shape
a people’s destiny.
While this narrative draws upon a
professional journey that spans eleven organizations and multiple institutional
settings, it consciously begins with the final and most consequential phase of
that journey. A brief reference to my academic formation is included at the
outset only to provide essential context, before the account moves directly
into the concluding chapter of my professional life.}
All the
initiatives of KCR decisively affirm one enduring truth: leadership makes a
huge difference: and that leadership was KCR. Apart from the initiatives and
interventions already referred to, sometimes briefly, sometimes as demanded by
chronology or continuity, two important dimensions of KCR’s leadership require
special and focused mention. These aspects not only complete the governance
narrative but also reveal the deeper architecture of his administrative
thinking and political evolution.
The
first relates to KCR’s far-reaching initiatives in District Administration,
Land Administration, and Administrative Reforms, which fundamentally redefined
the citizen–State interface in Telangana. These reforms went beyond routine
restructuring and addressed long-standing systemic distortions, bringing
governance closer to the people with clarity, accessibility, and institutional
certainty.
The
second concerns KCR’s felt need to enter national politics, rooted in his
conviction that India’s federal structure required meaningful correction. This
ideological journey culminated in the transformation of the Telangana Rashtra
Samithi (TRS) into the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS): a political reorientation
driven not merely by electoral ambition but by a broader vision of cooperative
federalism and structural governance reform.
Both
these dimensions are detailed in the following sections. One of the most
consequential governance initiatives undertaken during KCR’s tenure across his
two terms was the comprehensive restructuring of district administration
combined with a historic overhaul of land records management. These were not
isolated administrative exercises but part of a deeper governance philosophy,
to bring the State closer to the citizen and to bring certainty to land
ownership.
KCR
viewed administration not as a distant authority but as a responsive
field-level presence, and land not merely as property but as the foundation of
rural stability and economic dignity. From the earliest months of state
formation, KCR repeatedly emphasized that Telangana required not just new
policies but new administrative architecture. The inherited district structure
was, in his assessment, too large, uneven, and historically distorted, making
service delivery slow and supervision weak.
The
reorganization of districts, mandals, and revenue divisions was therefore
conceived as a people-centric reform. Accessibility, administrative reach, and
local responsiveness were treated as core criteria, rather than mere
territorial convenience or political arithmetic. The district reorganization
exercise was carried out through a structured and consultative process.
A
committee led by the Chief Secretary gathered field data, examined
geographical, demographic, and logistical factors, and invited representations
from the public and stakeholders. KCR personally reviewed multiple
configurations, often drawing upon his deep knowledge of regional history and
ground realities. What emerged was not just an increase in the number of
districts, but a redesigned administrative grid intended to reduce distance
between citizen and government, both physically and procedurally.
Parallel
to this structural reform was an even more sensitive and transformative
initiative, the purification and modernization of land records across the
State. KCR treated land records reform as central to Good Governance. He often
observed that uncertainty in land ownership lay at the root of rural disputes,
litigation, distress, and corruption. The State therefore undertook a massive,
time-bound, field-verified land records updating program, integrating survey,
verification, correction, and digitization in a coordinated manner across
villages.
What
distinguished this program was its simultaneity and field intensity. Rather
than incremental corrections spread over years, the government adopted a
synchronized statewide exercise conducted village by village. Revenue teams,
survey staff, and local verification mechanisms were mobilized in mission mode.
The objective was not clerical correction alone, but legal clarity and
administrative finality. The issuance of updated Pattadaar passbooks and title
documents provided citizens with tangible proof of ownership, reducing
ambiguity and dispute potential.
From my
position in and around the Chief Minister’s Office as CPRO, I observed how
closely this initiative was monitored at the highest level. Review meetings
were detailed and frequent. Communication strategy was treated as integral to
execution, because public trust and participation were essential for success. I
was associated in the process both directly and indirectly, sometimes through
structured briefings and sometimes through post-decision consultations,
particularly in shaping public messaging, clarifications, and explanatory
outreach around objectives and procedures.
KCR’s
grasp of land and revenue systems, historical, legal, and administrative, was
both deep and practical. He frequently referred to the evolution of land
administration from earlier regimes to modern statutory frameworks, and
insisted that reform must combine technological modernization with field
validation. This blend of historical awareness and forward-looking design gave
the program unusual coherence. It was not projected as a routine digitization
drive, but as a structural correction of a long-fractured system.
The
significance of the land records initiative drew national and international
attention. Distinguished visitors and policy experts who interacted with the
State leadership described it as a model of governance reform. It was
characterized by some as representing the very ‘Heart of Good Governance’
because it addressed a foundational citizen-state interface, the land rights.
Such recognition reinforced the view that Telangana was attempting not marginal
improvement but systemic correction in core administrative domains.
Taken
together, district reorganization and land records reform represented a
governance reset aligned with KCR’s larger vision of decentralized
administration, accountable delivery, and social stability. They demonstrated
his preference for structural solutions over cosmetic adjustments. My
association with these processes, whether through direct interaction,
structured consultation, or communication stewardship, gave me a close vantage
point to witness how vision translated into administrative design and then into
field execution. It remains one of the defining reform chapters of his tenure.
My book
on Telangana District and Land Administration released by CM KCR himself, was
therefore conceived not merely as a descriptive compilation of reforms, but as
an interpretative administrative record, placing district reorganization,
revenue restructuring, and land records purification within their proper
historical, institutional, and governance context.
It
attempted to connect field-level reform measures with their policy origins,
constitutional underpinnings, and administrative consequences. Drawing from
close observation within the Chief Minister’s Office ecosystem, the work
positioned these reforms as part of a larger governance redesign rather than
isolated executive actions. The documentation effort aimed to preserve a
structured and thematic account of how a newly formed State undertook deep
district-level and land governance reforms in a time-bound, mission-mode
framework.
It
captured policy intent, implementation architecture, review mechanisms, field
processes, and reform philosophy in an organized narrative form. My
satisfaction lay in ensuring that administrators, researchers, and public
policy observers, as well as supporters and critics, would have access to a
grounded and coherent record of these transformative initiatives beyond routine
news coverage and episodic commentary.
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