INTERVIEW OF Mr. T ILLAYARAJA

INTERVIEW OF Mr. T  ILLAYARAJA BY PAROTISH KUMAR AND GAURAV AGARWAL

ABOUT

T Ilayaraja is an IAS officer.India has around 5000 IAS officers. T Ilayaraja is one of those 5000 VIPs. 5000 IAS officers sounds a very small number to administer a large and populous country like India. To become an IAS officer is considered to be great achievement in India, it is a matter of great respect for the family to whom IAS officer belongs.

INTERVIEW

Q) What does quality mean to you?

A) Quality for me means better delivery of services. There should be satisfaction among the customers. It is delivered through perfection. For industries, quality is precision and accuracy. For service sector quality means the best delivery of services.

Q) In projects like Make in India, what should we focus upon more  – the quality of the product or its quantity?

A) Quantity and quality are two very subjective words. Quantity is nothing but the multiplication of quality.  If we focus more on the quality then we can bring the quantity in it. Hence the focus should mainly be on the quality but at the same time in projects like Make in India, quantity does matter. With 120 crore people living in this country, the quantity is a big aspect that an administrator has to look upon. We have to do work keeping in mind both these aspects .

Q) There has been a lot of projects launched in this country by the government and the Indian public seems to be very excited. Do you think the outside world sees these projects in the same manner?

A) The outside world always sees opportunity. In India, we need investments. We have got a lot of human resources. Getting investments would make our resources more skilled and efficient. We would get new technologies from them. The things that I am talking about is WiFi, broadband, etc. All these things are IT related. The countries which are IT superpowers always look for oppportunities in countries like us. Hence there is a win win situation arising. They will gain profits and we will get new technology. We might even get headquarters of big companies being set up in India .

Q) What measures can be taken so that the incidents like maggi don’t happen again?

A) For food products there are acts made in the Parliament. To maintain it at the district level we have food controllers in every district. They ensure food safety and quality. For industrial outputs there is a quality certificate called ISO certificate to determine its quality. The case with Maggi is a very peculiar one. This can be checked if we improve our own agencies and monitor them carefully.  

Q) What are the challenges that the service sector is facing these days?

A) For bringing of quality product we have to be very specific in nature. But  ensuring quality in the service sector is very challenging. There is a technological gap in our country. There are computer literates and illiterates. For a country aspiring to be an IT hub, this is not a situation we want to be in. We need to educate ourselves in computer technology. But the problem lies in the fact that there is no subject for computer science in government schools till tenth standard. We need to work towards this.

In social sectors administration is a complex thing. There is a problem of malnutrition in our country. We have to identify those who are needy and bring them to nutrition rehab centers. There is a huge amount of data needed. A single person is not enough for this. Crop failure is also a problem in our country. Technology can play a big role in helping us tackle these problems. For example drones these days are also used to check crop failure. Hence, people who are efficient in technology need to come forward and make the service sector more efficient.

DOCUMENTATION AND EDITING: RAMAN PRABHAKAR

PHOTOGRAPHY: PRIYA YADAV