After the meeting, I began to follow up on the file again. Now, I had the backing of the Chief Minister. I went to meet the senior IAS officer in the government who headed the forest department with a request to forward the file to the finance department. But, fate threw in another hurdle. The file was now up against an officer who had helped mini-hydel projects in the past, and whom we had once fought in a court of law. This IAS officer, who also claimed to be an ardent nature lover, summoned the file and proposed to the finance department that an amount of Rs 200— 350 per month be paid as hardship allowance, just 10 percent of what had been recommended by the Chief Minister. As per the decision taken by the Chief Minister in the SBW meeting, they were to provide a hardship allowance of Rs 2,000-3,500 per month, based on the position the frontline
staff held.
I informed the officer that this is not what the Chief Minister had approved, and that the sum was meagre and would serve no purpose. Despite this, the officer signed the order in my presence and sent the file to the finance department. He had removed one zero at the end of the approved amount!
I was flabbergasted. The Chief Minister’s decision had been given no value and had been misrepresented. Based on the recommendation of the officer the finance department approved this tiny allowance and issued a notification in April 2015.
Now, it is, quite simply, a colossal task to get any government order modified. The only way left for me was to personally meet the Chief Minister and explain to him what had happened. But how would I do this?
I was banking on Kaadaiah. I called him with a request and he promised me he would take this up with the Chief Minister, and if possible, also take me to meet him. Nothing moved for a few months, but one early morning, when the city was celebrating an Islamic festival, I got a call from Kaadaiah. He said, “The Chief Minister will go to participate in the Islamic prayers and will be free at his house thereafter. Let’s go and meet him today.” I hurriedly prepared all the documents, and carried a large framed picture of a tiger from Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary (captured on one of our camera-traps) to gift to the Chief Minister.
Photo: Nisarg Prakash
Kaadaiah seemed to be well known in the Chief Minister’s circle. As it was a holiday there were hardly any visitors in the house except for a few who seemed to be close to the Chief Minister. After a few minutes the Chief Minister arrived and as soon as he saw his friend he said, “Kaadaiah, who let you in? I had asked for no one to be let in today.” Kaadaiah jokingly said, “Sir, I don’t need anyone’s permission to see the head of the state.” They clearly shared a warm vibe and the Chief Minister also seemed to be in a relaxed mood.
I was introduced to the Chief Minister and presented him with the picture of the tiger. He seemed thrilled to receive it and asked for some details about the picture and tigers in general.
This gave me the much-needed opportunity to raise the issue of the hardship allowance and I quickly explained to him all that had happened, including the lower value approved despite his orders. He promised to take this up at the next SBW meeting.
The next meeting of the SBW was held soon after, in September 2015, and I had no issue to discuss apart from the hardship allowance. I had also made up my mind that if I had to confront the senior-most officer, I would do so. When the topic of the hardship allowance came up on the agenda, the “nature- loving” IAS officer immediately said that the hardship allowance had been approved and things were in place. I intervened to explain the discrepancy between the decision taken by the Chief Minister at the previous meeting and what had been approved in the file. At first, the officer wouldn’t let me speak. The Chief Minister, not even trying to hide his irritation, ordered the officer not to speak until I completed putting my views across. I explained to the board that the Chief Minister had approved up to Rs 3,500, but someone thereafter had changed this to Rs 350, an amount that would be of little use to anyone.
The Chief Minister summoned the file. After going through the papers, he immediately asked who had changed the amount to Rs 350. There was an uncomfortable silence in the large meeting room with no one willing to speak up to the Chief Minister who was known to be curt and decisive. Other members of the board, along with Kaadaiah, urged the Chief Minister to approve the higher allowance. The Chief Minister immediately ordered that the hardship allowance be changed to Rs 3,500 as per his previous orders given in July 2014.
The officer, as expected, was furious with me. It could not have been often during his service that he would have been asked by the Chief Minister to allow another to speak. He came up to me after the meeting in a show of intimidation, but I responded quietly that I was not asking for personal gain. He held a grudge against me to the day he retired, often making scathing, illogical comments every time we sat across each other in a meeting. Fortunately, he retired three months after the SBW meeting,
Finally, in May 2016, six and a half years after I had made the initial proposal, the government issued an order to provide the appropriate hardship allowance to the frontline staff working in all protected areas of Karnataka state. The proposal had passed the tenure of four Chief Ministers by then. Annually it would cost the state about Rs 4.5 crore (45 million rupees). This was an important token of appreciation to the frontline staff for their enormous contribution to wildlife conservation.
The hardship allowance was given out with immediate effect from May 2016, and many frontline staff have expressed to me that this is as a big support to them, in addition to being a morale booster for those working in harsh conditions.
Excerpted with permission from Second Nature – Saving Tiger Landscapes in the Twenty-First Century by Sanjay Gubbi, published by Rainfed Books, Price: Rs 325.00
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