‘Collector Bro’ Prasanth Nair has 160,000 FB followers.
By Sreekanth A Nair
A civil service officer in Kozhikode district of Kerala state is doing wonders through public participation in government works.
Cleaning a 14-acre pond is not an easy task. Sometimes it takes more than enough money from government exchequer and estimated time to get it completed.
On January 8, Prasanth Nair, district collector of Kozhikode, put a post on Facebook asking people to engage in cleaning 14-acre Pisharikavu pond in Koyilandy, near Kozhikode.
Describing the task, not a simple one, he said that those who clean the pond can have the money sanctioned by the government to get a water pump. In addition, he made a ‘delicious’ offer: participants would get famous Kozhikode biriyani.
The request worked and on Jan. 26, Republic day, around 750 locals came out for the task accomplished the mission.
Nair kept his promise and all of the volunteers had tasty Kozhikode biriyani afterwards.
Nair posted on his Facebook that, “people coordinated to cleanse the 14-acre Pisharikavu pond in Koyilandy of water hyacinth and slush.”
Nair, an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer, popularly known as ‘Collector Bro’, has been doing wonders through public participation, since he took over as the District Collector of Kozhikode last year.
People of Kozhikode call him ‘Collector Bro’ with great admiration and respect for his way of work which is very uncommon and unconventional.
He has successfully implemented ‘Operation Sulaimani’, a project to offer food to needy with the help of public.
“I wish to see a compassionate population in my district, people who care for each other. Our focus should shift from structures and concrete to people,” he had told The Indian Express in an earlier interview.
He is also followed by more than 160,000 people on Facebook.