IN CM’S ‘WAR ROOM’, MOPALWAR ENSURES DEVELOPMENT ON ‘WAR-FOOTING’

In one of the meetings of the War Room, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had stressed the need for speedy implementation of pending projects to ensure all-round development of the state. The message was loud and clear for the bureaucrats monitoring various projects in Maharashtra that a bureaucrat having ‘all-round’ ability and skills can only achieve the desired goal on developmental parameters. In fact, precision, speed, unambiguity, deep knowledge of files and official functioning, continuity and discretion are some of the major traits that a bureaucrat must possess to be able to be in the category of the officers known for their extraordinary administrative skills. Former IAS officer, Radheshyam Mopalwar is, beyond doubt, a bureaucrat having all these administrative qualities that make him fit for the responsibilities that have been given to him in capacity as Director General of CM’s War Room Infrastructure Projects. He has proved his mettle on many occasions in the past during his service period as an IAS officer. As an MSRDC VC and MD, Mopalwar discharged his duties perfectly and ensured a turn-around of the agency by completing several projects of road network. Now, he is making his presence felt in the war room of the Chief Minister. That the developmental works are being carried out on a war-footing goes to the credit of Mopalwar also, which is reason enough for the Maharashtra government to have faith in him.

Experts and Maharashtra watchers are of the view that officers like Mopalwar have the craft of ensuring coordination among the various agencies involved in any piece of developmental work. It is coordination that is mandatory for successful and speedy completion of any project. Mopalwar’s communication skill works to the benefit of the project when he manages to persuade the officials concerned to focus on any particular area related to the project in question. As a matter of fact, the concept of having a war room stemmed from the need to bring different agencies on one platform and pin accountability. The war room was used to take critical decisions from clearing green hurdles for one project or the other to settling land compensation disputes. With different agencies working together on one platform, ensuring coordination and mutual adjustment was a challenging task. The bureaucrat who was able to deal with this challenge was none other than Radheshyam Mopalwar. He rose to the occasion and gave valuable contributions to every single project that was brought to him.  In the latest meeting of the war room that took place in August 2023, all the government officials and political leaders took note  of Mopalwar’s suggestions while reviewing the projects, including Metro corridors in Pune, Nagpur and Mumbai, irrigation works and economic zones along the Samruddhi Highway. CM Eknath Shinde, Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis, Ajit Pawar and other senior bureaucrats were present in this review meeting at the war room in Mantralaya, the headquarters of the state government in Mumbai. Mopalwar explained his perspective in an unambiguous manner on how to fast track the projects.

The focus of Mopalwar remains also on development of rural regions of the state as any project impacting the villages will spike the economy of that particular region as well. As Mopalwar happens to be from a rural background, he always makes it a point to take into consideration how any particular project can give maximum benefit to the rural pockets as well as the urban centres. The war room discussed connecting Mumbai’s Eastern Expressway and Western Expressway. Obviously, Mopalwar’s views on this project are much-needed because of his experience in successful completion of various road projects when he was MD of MSRDC.

It is said that in an ideal bureaucracy, everyone is treated with equality and work responsibilities are divided among teams as per areas of expertise. Then, a well-defined hierarchical business or bureaucratic management system supports this, providing clear lines of communication and division of labour based on the layer of management. This practice in fact gets reflected in Mopalwar’s trademark style of working, be it in the past or present. As DG War Room Infrastructure projects, Mopalwar has fast-tracked every single process leading to speedy implementation of any project under his supervision. Several big-ticket infrastructure projects are already underway and many others are in the offing. With Mopalwar as DG in the war room, the projects would continue to see planned and speedy implementation which the CM has been emphasising on.