Kumar received a trophy and Rs 1 lakh from West Bengal Governor Dr. CV Ananda Bose at the Throne Hall ceremony….reports Asian Lite News
Asok Kumar, who belongs to the 1991 batch of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS-Telangana Cadre), received the West Bengal Governor’s Award for Excellence – 2023 for outstanding contributions to public services on Monday.
During the award ceremony held at the Throne Hall of the West Bengal Raj Bhavan, in the presence of a distinguished gathering, Kumar was given a trophy and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh, by Dr CV Ananda Bose, Governor of West Bengal.
“I am excited to receive the award along with my wife Dr Bindu and our son Gaurav, as they have also contributed to my work to the public, by bearing with me, supporting me and silently absolving me of the pangs of guilt of placing, many a time, my work priorities ahead and over the familial responsibilities,” said Kumar, Special Secretary and Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga.
Recently, the Namami Gange project headed by Kumar was recognised as “One of the Top Ten World Restoration Flagships” by the UN at the CoP15 meeting in Montreal in 2022.
Under the Namami Gange project over 2000 Million Liter Daily (MLD) sewage treatment capacity was added compared to 981 MLD in the seven previous years.
Besides the fruitful and innovative implementation of Namami Gange, the award also recognised the successful implementation of the “Catch The Rain” campaign to harvest rainwater.
Other contributions of Kumar as mentioned in the citation included his imprint in many other sectors like water, sanitation, infrastructure, urban planning, civil aviation, power, sports, welfare, health, education and IT. It added that Kumar had completed many infrastructure projects like the 162 Kms 8 lane Outer Ring Road, 90 MGD Krishna Phase-2 Drinking Water project, 90 MGD Godavari Drinking Water Project and many Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs). The citation said that, Kumar, as Principal Secretary Welfare Dept was instrumental in starting 119 English medium residential schools in all the 119 Assembly segments.
Kumar as Project Director, APSACS ( Andhra Pradesh AIDS Control Society), had launched the “#BeBold” campaign in 2006-08 to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV-AIDS and the “0/7“ initiative to reduce mother-to-child transmission. This was appreciated by UNAIDS as one of the best practices in the world to deal with HIV and its spread.
While serving in the central government as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Kumar was instrumental in setting up India’s Aircraft Accidents Investigation Bureau, headed a committee whose recommendations resulted in vastly improved facilities for passengers with reduced mobility and also played a key role in helping to revive the ailing aviation industry when it was going through a bad patch.
As director of the Ministry of Power, Kumar was in charge of R-APPRD programs to modernise power distribution entities and reduce their aggregate, commercial and technical losses and RGGVY, the program for rural electrification. He is also the founder president of the India Smart Grid Forum
In the water and sanitation sector, beginning with “Shubrata” Kumar’s initiative for the construction of over 1,40,000 individual sanitary latrines for households with people’s participation and about 3000+ toilets in 1000 schools in Nizamabad district in 2001-03 period when he worked as District Collector
As Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Water Mission, his innovative initiatives like the monthly “Water Talks” and “Water Tech Talks” drew over 2.5 million views.
National Water Mission under him was the chief implementing agency of the “Jal Shakthi Abhiyan: Catch the Rain” campaign, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modion World Water Day.
Kumar is the winner of many awards, including the “Jal-Mitra” award from the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the first TEX (Telangana Excellence) Award of the Government of Telangana for “Outstanding work done in Public Administration”, the Skoch Award for “Public Service”.