AK Singh at his residence in Ranchi on Sunday. (Hardeep Singh)

Ranchi, July 31: Bureaucrats in the state need to be more accountable as well as more proactive and sensitive to the problems of the common man, feels former chief secretary Ashok Kumar Singh.

Interacting with The Telegraph on his last day of work before retirement, Singh said bureaucrats need to listen to their conscience first, then keep the interest of the people whom they serve in mind before taking decisions, instead of going by some other diktat.

“Bureaucrats should realise that they are there to serve the people. Therefore, all that they to do or all that they decide to do, should be aimed at furthering public interest and nothing else,” said Singh, the director general of Sri Krishna Institute of Public Administration (SKIPA).

The former chief secretary agreed that political instability, which has dogged Jharkhand right from the start, had affected the bureaucracy and its decision making. Moreover, the state had failed to achieve the expected parameters of progress in the last one decade.

“In crucial areas like energy, roads, irrigation, health and education, the state continues to lag far behind other developed states. These are core areas and the bureaucracy has to pay special attention to these,” Singh said.

Singh, a 1977 batch IAS officer, was elevated to the highest bureaucratic post in the state on April 3 last year. He stayed at his post till March 15 this year when chief minister Arjun Munda, buckling under Opposition demands to remove Singh from the post because of the corruption charges he faced, appointed S.K. Choudhary as his successor.

When asked what was his most memorable achievement during his tenure as chief secretary, Singh said he tried to place a “system” on track and had succeeded to a large extent.

Singh also recalled his visits to remote villages during his stint at the top post and said bureaucrats should visit villages regularly as only then would the people at the grassroots develop a faith in the system.

“Officers, no matter which post they hold, should make regular visits to the villages in order to understand the problems. They should make honest efforts to solve the problems,” was Singh’s advice to juniors still in service.

Normally extremely busy, Singh today looked relaxed as he sat in his official residence at Doranda. A 1987 model car, the only four-wheeler owned by the former chief secretary, stood in front of the house.

When asked what he had planned to do after retirement, Singh replied that he was yet to plan anything.

Officials at SKIPA organised a small farewell function for Singh in the evening.