A woman IAS officer who thinks outside the box
By Amrit Pal Singh Brar
Chandigarh, 17 June 2019: “You manage things; you lead people” These words truly match with the personality of Isha Kalia an IAS officer of the 2009 batch of Punjab cadre. She manage things, she leads.
She is the Deputy Commissioner of Hoshiarpur; Isha Kalia an officer, who thinks inventively using new ideas instead of traditional or expected ideas to handle her work. Her “fanda” is vision, passion and action.
Isha Kalia had earlier served as DC of Fazilka. Her other postings are ADC Mansa, SDM Jalandhar, Additional Commissioner of Ludhiana MC. She had left footprints of good governance, wherever, she served.
A brave and confident lady officer, Isha Kalia has been in the spotlight, due to her various creative innovations at different postings. Her humble attitude and her technique to maintain close liaison with the masses have tagged her as one of the most popular bureaucrat of the state.
As Mansa ADC, She highlighted need for women education under the “Udaan” initiative. “Live your dream for a day” launched by her which was meant to bring awareness in the society about the value of the women education in the development of the nation was one of the admired projects, even by the PMO.
During her first tenure as DC of Fazilka, Isha Kalia has launched number of initiatives to refine the administration and give it a pro-people face. She has touched every section of the society and made efforts to provide them a space in the delivery of services and administrative set up.
She always do her work in a different way, wherever, whatever responsibility has been handed over to her says her subordinates from Fazilka, who had worked under her. “Her main focus was on delivery of services with commitment and passion” said a woman employee of DC office.
During her tenure as DC of Fazilka, she had brought in focus, issues related with women, old aged people, ex-servicemen, disabled persons, meritorious students and other down trodden people. To follow this agenda, Isha Kalia has invented various new initiatives.
One of her prominent initiatives was to keep on regular monitoring of the projects and to maintain its tempo; she introduced a new monitoring mechanism, named as “Field Friday” (FFD). It mandated that every Friday of the week, teams of administration including her (Isha) will fan out in the field to check out the ongoing developments works.
For the meritorious students of the Fazilka district, she has introduced a noble initiative “I-CAN” project to provide guidance and coaching to these students. I-CAN is a project under which one year free training is provided to meritorious students of plus two classes of the government schools.
With an aim to provide a hassle free treatment to the senior citizens, she started on an initiative “Sahyog” for them. “Sahyog” was mandated to provide a greater and superior treatment for the senior citizens during their visits to government offices in Fazilka district.
Now in Hoshiarpur Isha introduce “Har Veer Bar Divanga da Satkar”
After taking over as DC at Hoshiarpur, Isha Kalia introduced a campaign to accord special treatment and welfare of the disabled people under the title “Har Veer Bar Divanga da Satkar” (.i.e. Respect for disabled on every Thursday).
She earmarked every Thursday as a day for respect to disabled people, so that they don’t face any kind of difficulty for their routine works in the administrative offices. It’s her sensible approach towards the disabled people.
To motivate the youth to adopt a healthy life style, stay fit and ride away from drugs, Isha Kalia organised a big event ‘Ride and Run’, in collaboration with the Cycling Federation of India on March 10. It was the first certified road event in the state organised by the district administration in collaboration with the Cycling Federation of India, which proved as one of the successful events.
She says “Look at yourself from new angles and you may discover new things about yourself”. You can do million times more than you can imagine, she adds while speaking with APS Brar in her office. (Author can be contacted at amritbrar2012@gmail.com 9814313405).
