INDIA
For retired Indian Public Servant S.K. Misra (pictured) almost 40 years of Government service did not feel enough.
Mr Misra felt the experience he had gained and the reputation he had built as Principal Secretary to former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar could still be useful.
After he retired in the early 1990s, Mr Misra continued his work in the fields of conservation and heritage restoration, rural development, women’s empowerment and community engagement.
Now 87, he heads the Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development (ITRHD), a non-governmental organisation set up in 2011 that works in villages with often endangered heritage traditions.
“I could never think of total retirement or sitting idle,” Mr Misra said.
“I felt that with the experience that I had gained, I should use it for [a] social purpose.”
He said other senior PS employees who gained important experience should “not just hang up their boots” after retirement.
“There are so many areas where work needs to be done and where their experience could be utilised,” Mr Misra said.
The ITRHD concentrates on infrastructure development, primary education, skill development, employment generation, and development of rural tourism.
“In all our projects, the goal is not only to preserve important heritage assets for their own meaning and value, but to help the impoverished rural communities that own them to learn how to successfully manage them,” Mr Misra said.
“In the process, they should achieve self-sufficiency, improve living conditions, and develop a new sense of pride as owners of these special and most precious parts of our culture.”
He believes that female empowerment is crucial for India’s development.
“It is one of the biggest untapped sources in socioeconomic development where, apart from some success stories, there hasn’t been as much impact as there could have been,” Mr Misra said.
“The potential is tremendous.”
New Delhi, 26 May 2019
