उत्तराखंड जन सेवा मंच

About Mr. Jai Raj
I am Jai Raj. I worked for the Indian Forest Service (Uttarakhand Cadre) for around thirty seven and a half years (my batch being - 1983). I retired from the service in October-2020. I belong to Uttarakhand. I worked at several important positions in the State Government and outside as well. These include - apart from forest and wildlife management, wide fields ranging from advanced medical care of people, being Member of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) to prevent cruelty to animals to making state action plan for controlling climate change in Uttarakhand! I retired from the top-most position as the PCCF and Head of Forest Force of the Uttarakhand Forest Department. While in service, I worked persistently for improving governance - my USP being empathy for the common-man! My passion has been and continues to be to see improvement in governance where a common man is treated akin to a VIP! I consider the spirit of “service” to humans and other life-forms supreme!!
I have had vast experience in public-governance! I feel that there is a lot of scope in improving the governance in our State and the Country!! My area of interests are spirituality, good-governance, social-welfare, environmental conservation, animal-welfare, motivating young minds, arts and culture etc.

उत्तराखंड जन सेवा मंच (Uttarakhand Public Service Forum)

Uttarakhand is a small Himalayan State. The people of the State are very simple! The idea of carving out a hill state from erstwhile and vast-sized UP was lack of appropriate governance in this region. It took herculean efforts and lots of sacrifices by the people of this region to create Uttarakhand that is now completing around 20 years of its creation.

The question that comes to our mind is whether we have been able to achieve the objectives for which this state was created?

Did we have this in mind seeing where we are at present? Are we heading in the right direction? Are the people of Uttarakhand happy with the governance in the State? If the answer to all these questions is a blatant "NO" then we need to do something about it!

No one can be perfect - I agree! But we need to do much more!!

Causes can be ranging from lack of proper vision, planning, leadership, lack of accountability and corruption with a total apathy for the concerns of the common-man!!!

Civil Society is almost inactive in governance! Barring a few initiatives, the presence of Civil Society is almost nil. An effective Civil Society can contribute significantly in improving the overall governance in the State!

So here I come forward with this Civil Society Movement called the Uttarakhand Jan Seva Manch!

Its aims and objectives :-

To promote Good Governance by way of having close contact with the people; acting as an interface between the People and the State Government;
To establish an effective connect between upright officers (in-service and retired) for improving governance;
To strive to promote a work-culture in governance that is highly transparent, sensitive, accountable, full of sense of service towards the public; a system that operates without fear or favour and is conducive to promoting honesty and integrity among public servants;
To work as a "think-tank" to invite innovative ideas and promote them to address the long and short term problems of the people/State;
To motivate the youth, especially the students to contribute positively to the development of the State including their career counselling;
To engage with the state-government in presenting innovative ideas and people's perspective pertaining to developmental planning;
To mediate (when called upon) between the Government and the dissatisfied employees taking recourse to strikes affecting public-services;
To promote Good Governance by way of education and awareness;
To make people aware about RTI, Right to Service, other legislations, rules, Government developmental-schemes etc. to optimse public benefits;
To work for the empoverment of Children, Women and Socially and Economically Backward Classes;
To promote sustainable development in the State;
To promote the well being of not only humans but also of other life-forms;
To file litigation (including PILs) for the cause of the society wherever found necessary;
To promote Animal Welfare;
To promote Nature and Environmental Conservation;
To promote Spirituality and Moral/Ethical Values for a simple, delightful & contented life with a purpose;
To promote charity for the service of man and animal kind;
To honour upright individuals and organisations who have contributed significantly to good-governance in order to address the problems of the people;
To attend to generic problems of the people pertaining to public-governance;
To collaborate and assist individuals and organisations who have similar objectives;
To work for other objectives that might be found necessary in the due course of time for furthering the cause of the movement.

The forum will initially focus mainly on issues of Uttarakhand. However, it will gradually encompass national and international issues as it progresses.

I call upon ALL the individuals (including organisations) who have honest intentions, care for the welfare of Uttarakhand and want to make it a State of their dreams where they can feel proud of being an "Uttarakhandi", to come forward and join this initiative!!!

As individuals we can make some difference but if we join hands, we can make a BIG difference!!

Thanks n best!

Jai Raj