Parameswaran Iyer

Last updated

Parameswaran Iyer
The Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri Parameswaran Iyer addressing at the National Review Meeting of National Rural Drinking Water Programme.jpg
3rd CEO of NITI Aayog
In office
1 July 2022 (2022-07-01) –28 February 2023 (2023-02-28)
Occupation Civil Servant
Known forLeading the Swachh Bharat Mission

Parameswaran Iyer (born 16 April 1959) is an Indian civil servant and the former CEO of NITI Aayog. [1] He is currently serving as India's nominee as an Executive director in World Bank.

Contents

In 2016, he was appointed by the government to lead the Swachh Bharat Mission. [2]

Early life

Parameswaran was born in Srinagar to Air Marshal P. V. Iyer (Retd) and Kalyani. [3] He was educated at The Doon School in Dehradun, and at the St. Stephen's College, Delhi. [4] As a student of St. Stephen’s College he represented India at the Junior Davis Cup in Tennis. He then got a one-year exchange scholarship at Davidson College in North Carolina. [5]

Career

Iyer joined the Indian Civil Services in 1981. In 2009, he took a voluntary retirement to become the water resources manager at the World Bank. At the World Bank he worked in China, Vietnam, Egypt, Lebanon and Washington, D.C. [6]

In 2016, he joined the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India, and was appointed by Prime Minister Modi to spearhead the Swachh Bharat Mission and Sanitation and water Management campaigns related to it.

He also served as a Professor of Management Practices at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

He has been a columnist with the Indian Express . [7]

Swacch Bharat Mission

In 2016, he was appointed by the Government of India to implement Swachh Bharat Mission, the country-wide sanitation campaign to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management. [8] Iyer's modus operandi to achieve the strict goals under the mission (building 110 million toilets in 5 years) was unconventional and "non-bureaucratic" [9] which increased efficiency and delivery and led to the success of the program.

In 2019, India was declared as Open defecation free on Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birthday Anniversary. India built 100 million toilets in about 0.6 million villages, and another 6.3 million in its cities. [10] A UNICEF study estimated that a household in an ODF village saves an average of up to Rs 50,000 annually on such expenses as treatment of illnesses. [11] The biggest success of the program was to bring behavioural change at grassroot level through awareness campaigns and mass contact programmes.

During his stint at the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Iyer had entered a twin-pit toilet to empty it at a Telangana village in 2017 to help residents overcome the taboo of cleaning toilets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called the act remarkable during one of his Mann Ki Baat programmes.

The Prime Minister singled him out for praise on another occasion, at a function addressing ‘ Swachh Bharat Mission ’ volunteers in Bihar’s Champaran in 2018. [12]

Jal Jeevan Mission

He was also given the additional charge of another of the Prime Minister’s pet project, the Jal Jeevan Mission, with the goal of providing piped water supply to all households by 2024 through integrated water supply management at the grassroots.

In 2020, Iyer had resigned from the position and returned to the United States to join the World Bank and be close to his family. [13]

He served as the CEO and Manager of the 2030 Water Resources Group, a public-private-civil society partnership hosted by the World Bank, Washington DC. [ citation needed ]

In 2022, he returned to Indian Administration as the head of Government of India's apex think tank NITI Aayog. [1]

In 2023 he was nominated as an Executive Director of World Bank by India.[ citation needed ]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Community-led total sanitation</span> Approach to improve sanitation and hygiene practices, mainly in developing countries

Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is an approach used mainly in developing countries to improve sanitation and hygiene practices in a community. The approach tries to achieve behavior change in mainly rural people by a process of "triggering", leading to spontaneous and long-term abandonment of open defecation practices. It focuses on spontaneous and long-lasting behavior change of an entire community. The term "triggering" is central to the CLTS process: It refers to ways of igniting community interest in ending open defecation, usually by building simple toilets, such as pit latrines. CLTS involves actions leading to increased self-respect and pride in one's community. It also involves shame and disgust about one's own open defecation behaviors. CLTS takes an approach to rural sanitation that works without hardware subsidies and that facilitates communities to recognize the problem of open defecation and take collective action to clean up and become "open defecation free".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bindeshwar Pathak</span> Indian sociologist (1943–2023)

Bindeshwar Pathak was an Indian sociologist and social entrepreneur. He was the founder of Sulabh International, an India-based social service organisation promoting human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education. He was the Brand Ambassador for Swachh Rail Mission of Indian Railways, a complement to the broader Swachh Bharat Mission. His work is considered pioneering in social reform, especially in the field of sanitation and hygiene. He received various national and international awards for his work with this organisation. He was presented with the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management for the year 2017. He was conferred the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, in 1991.

In 2020, 97.7% of Indians had access to the basic water and sanitation facilities. India faces challenges ranging from sourcing water for its megacities to its distribution network which is intermittent in rural areas with continuous distribution networks just beginning to emerge. Non-revenue water is a challenge.

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation was a ministry of the Government of India formed in 2011. From May 2019, the ministry has been merged with the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open defecation</span> Humans defecating outside (in the open environment) rather than into a toilet

Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do not have a toilet readily accessible or due to traditional cultural practices. The practice is common where sanitation infrastructure and services are not available. Even if toilets are available, behavior change efforts may still be needed to promote the use of toilets. 'Open defecation free' (ODF) is a term used to describe communities that have shifted to using toilets instead of open defecation. This can happen, for example, after community-led total sanitation programs have been implemented.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swachh Bharat Mission</span> Indian campaign to eliminate open defecation

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India in 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management. The program also aims to increase awareness of menstrual health management. It is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan launched in 2009 that failed to achieve its intended targets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NITI Aayog</span> Indian government think tank

The NITI Aayog serves as the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India, and the nodal agency tasked with catalyzing economic development, and fostering cooperative federalism and moving away from bargaining federalism through the involvement of State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach. Its initiatives include "15-year road map", "7-year vision, strategy, and action plan", AMRUT, Digital India, Atal Innovation Mission, Medical Education Reform, agriculture reforms, Indices Measuring States’ Performance in Health, Education and Water Management, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Rationalization of Centrally Sponsored Schemes, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Skill Development, Task Forces on Agriculture and up of Poverty, and Transforming India Lecture Series.

This is a list of Indian states and territories ranked by the availability of toilet facilities per household. Figures are from the 2011 census of India.

India Development Foundation of Overseas Indians (IDF-OI) www.idfoi.nic.in is a not for profit Trust established in 2008 by Government of India with the approval of the Cabinet to serve as a credible institutional avenue to enable overseas Indians to engage in philanthropy to supplement India's social and development efforts. The New Delhi-based Trust is chaired by Sushma Swaraj, Minister for External Affairs and is exempt from the provisions of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA).

This is a list of Indian states and territories by the percentage of households which are open defecation free, that is those that have access to sanitation facilities, in both urban and rural areas along with data from the Swachh Bharat Mission, National Family Health Survey, and the National Sample Survey. The reliability of this information can be questioned, as it has been observed that there is still open defecation in some states claimed "ODF".

Kunwar Bai Yadav was a woman who lived in a village in Dhamtari district in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In her old age, inspired by the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, she sold seven of her goats to raise the money to build a toilet at her house. In 2016, the district was declared the first in the state to be free of open defecation, and she was declared a mascot of the campaign and visited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Swachh Survekshan (lit. Sanskrit "Swachh" for Cleanliness and "Survekshan" for Survey - (सर्व + ईक्षण is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in villages, cities and towns across India. It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2 October 2019. The first survey was undertaken in 2016 and covered 73 cities ; by 2020 the survey had grown to cover 4242 cities and was said to be the largest cleanliness survey in the world. The surveys are carried out by Quality Council of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EToilet</span> Type of public toilet in India

An electronic toilet or eToilet is a type of public toilet that is used in India. The increase in use of eToilets is in support of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which intends to reduce the practice of open defecation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Har Ghar Jal</span> Schemes of Government of India

Har Ghar Jal is a scheme initiated by the Ministry of Jal Shakti of Government of India under Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019 with the aim to provide tap water to every rural household by 2024.

Baghuwar is a village located in the Narsinghpur district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The village is located in the Jabalpur division of Madhya Pradesh. It is approximately 201 kilometres (125 mi) away from Bhopal, which is the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunita Devi (mason)</span>

Sunita Devi is an Indian mason honoured for building toilets. In her village 90% of the women did not have access to a toilet. After her work they all now have access. She was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award in 2019 by the President of India.

S Damodaran is the founder of the NGO Gramalaya based in Tiruchirappalli. Gramalaya, established in 1987, was initially focused on the economic improvement of rural people. Later, realizing that the more urgent and immediate concern is the unavailability of clean drinking water and toilet facilities, the NGO shifted their focus to water and sanitation. Gramalaya aims to eradicate open defecation by providing eco-friendly toilets. Gramalaya is now an important resource center of the Ministry of Jalshakti, Govt of India. The NGO has been functioning with the support of Government, donors and corporate groups under CSR initiatives. It was Gramalaya's efforts that helped transform the Thandavampatti village in Tiruchy into the first open-defecation free village in India in 2003.

References

  1. 1 2 "Parameswaran Iyer appointed new CEO of NITI Aayog". India Today. 24 June 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  2. ↑ Chitravanshi, Ruchika (27 July 2020). "Modi's Swachh Bharat man, Param Iyer calls it a day as sanitation secy" – via Business Standard.
  3. ↑ Bamzai, Kaveree (6 October 2019). "Modi's favourite Parameswaran Iyer belongs to the cult of super IAS officers like TN Seshan".
  4. ↑ Raj Chengappa (20 December 2019). "The Swachh Yogi". India Today.
  5. ↑ Iyer 2021, p.1
  6. ↑ "Parameswaran Iyer | Indian Economy". indianeconomy.columbia.edu.
  7. ↑ "Parameswaran Iyer". 30 October 2019.
  8. ↑ Sharma, Aman (25 January 2021). "Modi trump card behind swachh mission, says former secretary Parameswaran Iyer". The Economic Times.
  9. ↑ Dhingra, Sanya (31 January 2021). "Parameswaran Iyer, Modi's IAS man for Swachh Bharat, reveals how the mission was achieved".
  10. ↑ "ODF India is an immense achievement, but it must be made sustainable: CSE". www.cseindia.org. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  11. ↑ "Parameswaran Iyer: A Clean Man". Open The Magazine. 25 April 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  12. ↑ "Parameswaran Iyer, ex-bureaucrat who ran Swachh Bharat Mission will be new NITI Aayog CEO". Hindustan Times. 24 June 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  13. ↑ "Swachh Bharat key player Parameshwaran Iyer quits government". The Hindu. 27 July 2020 – via www.thehindu.com.
  14. ↑ "Method in the Madness". Harper Collins Publishers India.
  15. ↑ "The Swachh Bharat Revolution". Harper Collins Publishers India.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.