info@drrajivgupta.net
info@drrajivgupta.net
Right from the detection of the first case in the State of Gujarat, he actively contributed in the fight against COVID-19. He was instrumental in designing an effective workable PPP model for bringing on board private hospitals by requisitioning their infrastructure and staff under the Epidemic Act,1897, which helped enhance COVID-19 treatment facilities in various Districts. After that, since 6th May, 2020, he steered the fight against Corona in Amdavad city which was in a complete panic situation at that time, every week cases and deaths were increasing, deaths were increasing. After a systematic and stringent implementation of a series of interventions (which is now popular as Amdavad Model of COVID Management), not only the increasing trends in number of positive cases and deaths were controlled and brought down but the citizens of Ahmedabad were provided a great deal of relief and life was brought back to near normalcy. WHO, NITI Aayog, Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and Hon’ble Gujarat High Court have all appreciated this Amdavad Model of COVID Management developed under Dr. Gupta’s leadership and recommended it for replication by other mega cities in India.
GPCB is the regulatory body for enforcement of Air Act and Environmental Protection Act in Gujarat.
Total Overhauling of functioning of GPCB has been achieved:
As Managing Director of GNFC (www.gnfc.in), I am responsible for running this Company with a turnover of around US$ 1 billion and assets worth US$ 2.5 billion and a work force of around 5,500 consisting of chemical engineers and others performing supporting functions. We produce fertilizers like Urea, Ammonium Nitro phosphate and chemicals like Acetic Acid, Methanol, Toluene Di-Isocyanate (TDI), Aniline, Nitric Acid, Ethyl Acetate, Formic Acid, AN Melt, etc. Our fertilizers are used by over 12 million farmers in the country and we export industrial products to around 66 countries.
Compared to FY 2016-17:
Supervision of implementation of wide gamut of labour laws like Minimum Wages Act, Child Labour Act, Industrial Dispute Act, Trade Unions Act etc.; monitoring and supervision of Industrial Safety and Health through the Directorate across 38000 registered establishments under the Factories Act; promotion of Employment generation through employment exchanges across the State and Skill Development through a network of over 700 Industrial Training Institutes and 500 Skill Development Centers.
As Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department I have headed a Department consisting of 162 Municipalities, 8 Municipal Corporations and Gujarat Urban Development Company. Main functions included development of urban infrastructure, urban planning and various flagship schemes of Government of India and State Government like Smart City, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transportation, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana etc.
I hold following separate positions in water sector:
As Principal Secretary Water Supply, I head the Water Supply department in Government of Gujarat responsible for providing drinking water to around 18,000 villages and 179 towns of Gujarat state with over 50 million population. This is basically a position at State Government Headquarters at Gandhinagar-the State Capital, wherein interface with other departments and State legislature are primary duties in addition to formulating major policy level decisions for the water sector within State of Gujarat. I report directly to Minister Water Supply and the Chief Minister of the State.
Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board (GWSSB) is a special purpose vehicle, created under the Act of State Government in 1979 to provide functional autonomy and facilitate quick decision making in drinking water sector. As Chairman of GWSSB, I am responsible for supervising the work of around 8,500 people consisting of around 4,000 engineers and the rest of field supervisors, linemen and administrative staff. GWSSB operates over 360 regional water supply schemes, around 10,000 mini pipe schemes and around 4,000 individual schemes of drinking water supply connecting 18000 villages and dozens of towns in the State. We have also outsourced running of many schemes to around 120 O&M agencies. On a regular basis, GWSSB also implements augmentation and remodeling of existing schemes and expands scope of drinking water network by undertaking 15-20 new regional water supply schemes every year. We run more than 2,200 small, medium and big pumping stations of various sizes and capacities under GWSSB. The O&M expenditure alone of these schemes is around US$ 175 million every year.
As Chairman and Managing Director of Gujarat Water Infrastructure Limited (GWIL), I supervise the work of laying bulk water pipelines facilitating interbasin transfer of water of various rivers like Narmada, Tapi, Mahi, etc. To give a perspective, the pipelines laid by this organization are so big that a small family size car can easily run through these pipelines and pumping stations run by us have such huge capacities that some of them can fill an Olympic size swimming pool within less than two minutes.
Water and Sanitation Management Organization (WASMO) is a capacity creating building arm of Water Supply department creating grass root capabilities of people for water distribution, formation of water committees in villages and for empowering women. We have formed Water Committees in all 18,000 villages, of which, around 15,000 are fully functional. They basically consist of elected village officials, women, etc. and participate actively in implementing and operating individual village water supply distribution systems including the fixation and recovery of water tariff.
The Gujarat State Wide Water Grid consisting of around 2700 kms of bulk pipelines, 1,20,769 kms of distribution pipelines, more than 11,000 storage structures is arguably amongst the biggest water grids in the world. Again to give a perspective, only steel quantity used in grid is equivalent to more than 51 Eiffel towers and the pipelines network length is sufficient to encircle the circumference of the earth three times.
During my last three years tenure, I have contributed extensively to building, integrating, implementing and operating State Wide Water Grid. I manage yearly budget of almost US$ 600 million and during last three years, I have acquired extensive experience of Project Management of over 100 big and small water supply projects, worth around US$ 2 billion.
I have had the honor of having headed the first full-fledged, designated Climate Change Department not only in the country but also in Asia. We have developed holistic Climate Change policy for Government of Gujarat by coordinating with various Departments, Government of India and national and international agencies. This Department is also promoting the maximum utilization of green technologies including solar and wind power for generating new employment opportunities.
Managing Public Distribution System for the State of Gujarat by supplying essential commodities like Wheat, Rice, Sugar, Oil, Salt and Pulses to the entire network of around 17,000 Fare Price Shops. This involved tremendous logistic operation of shifting commodities from Food Corporation of India godowns, transportation to around 200 godowns of GSCSC in all the 26 Districts and then managing ‘Door Step Delivery’ from these godowns to the Fare Price Shops. This operation benefits around three million families Below Poverty Line whose dependence on subsidized commodities is critical. The Corporation has a turnover of around Rs.1600 Crores (around US$ 250 million) per year with an employee strength of 1800.
Supervising the Directorate of Animal Husbandry (running over 2300 dispensaries, field centers, etc.) and also Commissionerate of Fisheries (involved in development of marine and inland fisheries) were the major functions in this tenure.
I managed and supervised the implementation of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) through around 44,000 Anganwadi centers located in almost every village of the State. Providing nutritious hot cooked meals to children up to six years of age and adolescent girls and lactating mothers in order to address the nutritional deficiency has been the main objective of this scheme.
This, being one of the most ambitious water development projects, envisages the creation of a 2000 Sq Km fresh water reservoir by closing the Gulf of Khambhat through a 64 Km long dam and harnessing the excess waters of Narmada, Sabarmati, etc. This 12 billion dollar project would also involve generation of 6000mw of tidal power, land reclamation all along the coast of Saurashtra, (western Gujarat) and irrigation of more than one million hectares. After having part commissioned the Narmada Project and having transported the waters of Narmada to farthest drought stricken parched hinterlands of Gujarat, the government of Gujarat is treating Kalpsar project as an extraordinary mile stone in ensuring long term water security in Gujarat State.
Supervision and developmental activities for institutions of higher learning (8 Universities, around 1000 colleges, around 100 technical institutions like Engineering colleges, Polytechnics, Pharmacy Colleges etc.) with a student population of around 5,50,000.
I have worked for three years in this organization which is implementing one of the largest multipurpose, multibillion dollar river valley project in the world – Sardar Sarovar Project, aiming to bring around 1.8 million hectares of land under irrigation, to provide drinking water to more than 30 million people and to produce 1450 MW of hydro power. The 1210 m long concrete gravity dam with maximum height of 163 m from the deepest foundation level, ranks second in the world after Grand Coule Dam (USA) in terms of volume of concrete. The vast canal network of the Project consists of 458 km long concrete lined gravity main canal and 66,000 km long distribution network designed to convey 11.7 billion cubic meters water annually over a distance of 700 km across two major water scarce States of Western India.I have managed an annual budget of over US$ 500 million every year in addition to personnel management of around eight thousand technical and non-technical personnel. Working in this project has given me experience of various environmental, hydrological, economic, social and regional components of integrated river basin management. I have also been involved in constant negotiations and consensus building with various stake holders in the project viz. four major states (which may equal medium sized countries in Europe in terms of their area and population), host of environmental and human rights Non Governmental Organization, International Institutions, Transnational Corporations, national and foreign governments etc. I have also dealt with various human rights issues connected with development induced displacement and contributed to national and international literature in this regard.
in Gujarat State, IndiaThis is a very unique post in India whereby the incumbent is supposed to exercise control, direction and superintendence over around forty developmental and regulatory departments of the State Government in the District (the administrative sub-unit of the State, normally having a population of about 3 million) having a staff strength of around 25,000 personnel. I have worked in this position for five years. The developmental functions include integrated rural development by way of implementation of schemes aiming at providing basic infrastructure like drinking water, roads, schools, etc. in the villages and schemes aiming to assist small and marginal farmers to increase productivity in their agricultural operations. The development of small scale industries based on local skills and providing large scale employment, management of large health infrastructure consisting of more than 50 primary health centers, hundreds of medical sub-centers and para medical staff of a few thousands, collection of land revenues and other taxes on behalf of the State Govt., maintenance of revenue records, conducting quasi judicial cases under various revenue and criminal Acts, integrated development of tribal areas by way of various developmental schemes aiming at up gradation of skills, provision of assets for employment generation, increasing productivity of tribal agriculture, etc. also formed part of my duties. The regulatory functions include the maintenance of law and order through the police force and implementation of various Acts promulgated by the Central and State Governments for maintaining pubic order.I was involved in implementation of Special Poverty Alleviation Programmes of Central and State Governments aiming at “poorest among poor” viz. Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Integrated Tribal Development Programme (ITDP), Development of Women and Children in Rural Area (DWACRA), Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme (PMIUEP), Scheme for Urban Micro Enterprises etc.As ex-officio Chairman of the District Level Credit Committee (DLCC), I was involved in formulation and implementation of five Annual District Credit Plans based on Service Area Approach.
Supervision of Directorate of Animal Husbandry and formulation of public policy for dairy farmers were main functions.
During this tenure I was part of the Core Group responsible for formulation of Annual Development Plan of the State (45 million population) worth over $ 3 billion, which involved a lot of research about developmental requirements of various departments like agriculture, health, education, social welfare, civil supplies, water supply, irrigation, public works, home, transport etc. and preparation of various schemes of development for these departments, synthesizing them in the format of Annual Development Plan, which was finalized by consultations with Planning Commission of the Government of India.
During this tenure, I was involved with revival of the sick textile units.
Coordination with law & order agencies, implementation of preventive detention laws, police welfare activities, surveillance and intelligence gathering and coordination with district authorities during communal riots situations, were the functions performed by me.
This job involved preparation of documents known as District Gazetteers for each district (administrative sub-unit of the State). They contain information on geographical characteristics, natural resources, socio-cultural history, patterns of agriculture, status of industries, trade and commerce, educational facilities, transport and other infra structural activities, trends of economic growth, public health and medical services, general and revenue administration, law and order, and judicial system, status of Non-Government Organizations etc. in every district of the State.