With a heavy heart the Morung Express writes this column to pay tribute to one of the most promising civil servant, Raj Verma, a 1983 batch NCS officer, who passed away on February 3, 2012 after a prolonged ailment. At the time of his demise Raj Verma was Additional Secretary to the Government of Nagaland and also Deputy Team Leader of Nagaland Empowerment of People through Energy Development (NEPeD). It is obvious that the civil service in Nagaland has lost an upcoming ‘brilliant’ officer. The high praises from those in the government—Governor, Chief Minister and Chief Secretary while condoling the officer’s passing away is evident of the quality of the public service rendered by the young officer during his brief but illustrious career as a government servant. As the Governor in his condolence stated “he was a charming person who made his mark as a conscientious public servant”. Even our Chief Minister described him as “a highly innovative, brilliant and well-read officer”.
That Raj Verma was an officer worthy of being seen as a role model, especially for the upcoming younger officers, has been duly acknowledged by the tribute coming in from the Chief Secretary. The head of the Nagaland bureaucracy has described Raj Verma as “one of the most outstanding and versatile officer we have in Nagaland”. As someone who has first hand experience working with the late officer, the Chief Secretary stated that Raj Verma had has been at the core of most of the government’s brainstorming sessions on the state’s futuristic visions and many creative strategies for dealing with issues of global significance such as global warming and Climate Change strategies. Indeed it is a great loss to the state government and the people of Nagaland as a whole to have lost such a promising public servant. Raj Verma had all the attributes of what an officer of this day and age required—innovation, skills, adaptability, professional drive, lots of motivation and as the Governor rightly mentioned he was a “conscientious public servant”, truly an officer worthy of emulation by anyone who wants to enter public service.
We at the Morung Express are equally pained by this untimely loss. He was a well wisher and was a great source of inspiration especially his positive attitude towards public service as he was always motivated to give his best. Although he served in various areas of governance since joining service, we remember in particular, the missionary zeal with which he worked on the issue of the environment and climate change. He was very knowledgeable and articulate when it came to raising concerns on this vital subject. Raj Verma was the principal mentor for the Climate Change Leaders program in North East India. His innovative leadership created a lot of positive influence and impact around those he worked with. He could well be credited for bringing to the forefront the concern of climate change in Nagaland. Along with the Morung Express, he took the initiative to start a weekly Saturday column called ‘Climate Change Corner’ which was used as a platform for education and awareness on this topic. He took several other initiatives to reach out to people in the area of sustainable development. He, with another LEAD Fellow, recently initiated formation of the Eastern Nagaland Conservation Areas Network (ENCAN) to mobilize grass root participation in the area of biodiversity and its preservation. Initially comprising of 45 villages of Eastern Nagaland the network has grown since then to over more than 100 villages. He was also a member of the Expert Committee for drafting of the Nagaland Biodiversity Rules. And true to what the CM stated, the contributions made by Raj Verma in the areas of environment conservation and overall development of rural economy of Nagaland will be long remembered.
