Thursday, January 18, 2007

‘Strict action is taken against corrupt at Jal Nigam’: MD

Corruption is a bane that is devouring the administrative set-up of the country. Krishan Kumar Aggarwal, managing director, Jal Nigam claims to have put a brake on it, at least in his organization. “Since hon’ble Urban Development Minister has taken over as President – Jal Nigam, we have made a great deal of progress in this direction. Whenever any incident of corruption comes to our knowledge, we take strict action. I do not say that we have been able to stop it altogether, but it has been curbed extensively,” says the MD.
KK Aggarwal has several decades of experience working in this field. A civil engineer from Roorkee University, who later did ME in Hydraulics, he joined what was then LSGD on 15th February, 1971, which was later converted into Jal Nigam in 1975. He is at helm of affairs as MD, Jal Nigam since 30th June, 2005 and has been instrumental in Jal Nigam’s recent focus on improving work load and quality. Other than the usual chore of handling water supply, sever and drainage, Jal Nigam also builds and hand over sever treatment plants to local bodies like Nagar Nigam, but there are several cities like Allahabad, Lucknow and Varanasi where sever treatment plants, built as part of Ganga Action Plan, are also being operated by Jal Nigam due to paucity of technical resources with the local bodies. “Cities like Muzzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Mathura and Vrindavan have been taken over but the rest are still being handled by us,” informs Mr. Aggarwal while describing the nature of Jal Nigam’s work.
Mr. Aggarwal is a busy man today. “Present posting is routinely hectic,” says he adding that other than the routine work, there is enough work pressure owing to the huge size of area that he has to handle. Due to this, he is unable to pursue his hobbies. Says Mr. Aggarwal: “I have been a sportsman all my life. Other than studies my time was spent in playing table tennis, badminton and volleyball. When the club was close, I used to go to watch movies, another of my favourite past-time. Now it’s not possible to play. I do see a movie occasionally on TV but it has been a long time since I went to a picture hall.”
Hailing from a small town of Hasanpur in district Moradabad, KK Aggarwal has come a long way. Today, both his children are settled. While his son Prashnu Aggarwal is a practicing lawyer in High Court, with Arun Sinha, his daughter is doing MSc in Computers.
When asked where he finds the society heading, KK Aggarwal candidly refutes though he adds: “I won’t talk much as values have changed with generation. People are becoming more materialistic. What will be the end, I cannot tell.”
Whatever, one thing is certain. This man has spent lifetime doing a great service – serving the society through providing one of the most basic needs – water. May the devata of rain and water shower on him a just reward!

No comments: