Chitradurga Lakshmi Narayana IAS

Sometime in the mid 1960s Chitradurga Lakshmi Narayana, CLN to friends, was standing on the banks of Maduranthakam lake in Chengalpat district. It was the middle of December and the monsoon season just ended, bringing copious inflows of water into the lake. Occupying several square miles this massive body of water was the lifeline to several thousand acres of farmland surrounding it, not to speak of the number of farmers who depended on it. When you survey the lake end to end when it is overflowing, as CLN did that evening, the awesome sight hits you underlining the generosity of nature. Young CLN stood transfixed in front of the lake in fading sunlight, thinking about the good fortune to be blessed with several hundred lakes in the district.

Roll forward about five years. CLN this time was in Delhi, seated in front of the selection committee for the Indian Civil Services as one of the countless aspirants for the Indian Administrative Service. Now then, the IAS is a premier service in the country manning all the decision making roles in the administrative machinery, and uniformly, and not always objectively, portrayed as the steel frame of India. To get into the IAS candidates have to jump through several hoops, including a murderous competitive examination, culminating in a final interview. The committee typically looks for a thoughtful perspective from candidates, and expects them to be supported by sound reasons for holding such views. Mr Verma, former Chief Secretary to the Government of Karnataka was in the chair, and therefore had the privilege of firing the first question at CLN, ‘Impressive academic credentials you have, young man. Do they tell you what the biggest challenge for India will be forty years from now? In other words, in 2010 what is going to be the most scarce resource in India?’. CLN hesitated a bit about the approach he should take to this question, toying between a safe and predictable answer like employment opportunities for a rising population or investment needed for shoring up the infrastructure, or going with his gut on what he truly thought to be a genuine problem area. He then decided to bet on his instincts and say, ‘sir, my answer might surprise you, but I foresee a massive and debilitating scarcity of drinking water in the year 2010 or thereabouts. And not just in India but all over the developing world’. Mr Verma and his colleagues on the committee were rather surprised at this answer and probed him further, saying ‘How do you reach these dramatic conclusions, young man? Look around you, there is plenty of water in all the lakes and rivers.’ 

At this, CLN took a deep breath and started outlining his reasoning. ‘Sir, for one thing the population of India is steadily rising, and is projected to go from 45 Cr today to something like 130 Cr in 2015. But the water resources available to us are staying the same and I would even say steadily diminishing in capacity. Let me explain. The annual rainfall over the next forty years in not likely to change dramatically, may even go down a bit due to climate issues. While the rainfall may be bountiful, we can see quite a lot of it drains into the seas, a complete waste of nature’s gift. More significantly, India’s lakes of which there are thousands, are woefully neglected; as you can observe, they are progressively getting silted up without proper maintenance; furthermore, they are getting polluted due to human encroachments. Unless our approach to managing river waters and husbanding lakes’ capacities, India is in for a water shortage in forty years’ time if not sooner’

When the civil services results came out that August, CLN was not surprised to find his name placed somewhere near the top; however, the very top of the list was occupied by other candidates who gave rather conventional, even pedestrian, answers to the perspective question. ‘So much for original thinking in Indian administration’, CLN took his less-than-top position in the merit list rather philosophically. Irrespective, he got a choice of plum postings in his IAS career because of his high placement in the examinations.

For the next twenty years or so, CLN had a good run in the administrative mechanism within the State and Central Governments, holding progressively important positions; he was considered an expert on public finance and political economy having handled a number of postings dealing with these very matters. He was adroit enough to navigate the tortuous waters of caste based administrative politics, relative lack of knowledge by elected politicians and constant tug of war between the Center and the States. He was thought to be competent, diligent and more importantly, politically neutral by his seniors. An important quality of his much admired by his political bosses was his knack of finding the right administrative methods to achieve their political aims, all within the framework of law. By the time he was in his mid forties, he became a Principal Secretary to a State Government, a seriously important position dealing with Finance. He was on the cusp of being posted to the Centre as a Revenue Secretary within the next couple of years. From there to the Finance Secretary’s position is just a short hop, and who knows what could happen afterwards. In short CLN was a seen as a shooting star in the Indian administrative universe.

While his career was going up, CLN became increasingly thoughtful, and was beginning to think that there was more to life than getting more promotions at work. He began to question, ‘Is life only about increasingly bigger offices and getting some more perquisites? What is the difference one is making to the rest of the world in all this upward movement?’. While he was in this introspective mood a chance event forcefully shook him up and even gave him some firm ideas for his future. As it happened he was in a car speeding towards the city from Trichy on the Grand Southern Trunk road. As the car was rounding the tank bund overlooking the Maduranthakam lake he was shocked to see the lake bed bone dry, and some cows grazing there. In some distress he asked the driver to stop the car near a vantage point. A deeply concerned CLN stood at the same spot where he stood nearly twenty years earlier while admiring the fullness of the lake; only this time it was completely dry with clumps of bushes growing here and there on the lake bed. Even granting it was summer, he told himself, this was a lake that never went dry in hundreds of years of its existence. CLN was also somewhat surprised to see the lake bed lying not very much below level ground, at the most ten or fifteen feet. A thought suddenly hit him, ‘the lake must have been much deeper than this, perhaps even fifty or sixty feet. Over the years the lake has been steadily silting up, making it just a shallow basin.’ He was lamenting the public and government apathy in not maintaining a critical natural resource properly and allowing it to go to seed. Years rolled away in his mind and he recalled the lively dialogue he had with Mr Verma during the IAS interview on water shortage. ’Here I am a senior government officer, and right under my nose I am seeing evidence of neglect and abuse of water resources. Is it any wonder that we are sure to be in the grip of serious water scarcities in the years to come?’ 

The desolate image of a dry Madurantakam lake seemed to hit CLN in a big way, and all his professional disappointments hitherto silently gurgling underneath came to the surface. He was telling his wife that evening, ‘What is the point of being called an expert in public finance, this and the other, when there is not much tangible impact to show for doing what I do? Who remembers any of the past ten finance secretaries to the Government of India? There is only so much one can achieve shuffling numbers in finance. The real thing is do something worthwhile that changes people’s lives for the better’. As he was speaking a rather unconventional plan was forming in his mind and he decided to investigate it further. 

At home in Chennai he consulted his wife on his action plan, since it would mean some disruption to their settled life after all. He remembered his old friend Nigel Barber who was the head of the Ford Foundation in New York, and decided to call him to seek his advice on his plan. CLN had met Barber earlier when he presented a paper on integrating the efforts of global development bodies, such as the Ford Foundation, within the public finance equations of developing nations. CLN’s ideas, while thoughtful, represented a path breaking departure from nationalist orientations of public finance. Since that time, a deeply impressed Barber maintained a steady correspondence with CLN on many matters relating to development. Therefore at this time CLN had no hesitation in reaching out to Barber on his dilemma. After customary preliminaries CLN got down to business at hand, saying ‘Nigel, the effects of society’s and indeed governments’ neglect on lakes and other large water bodies are heart-wrenchingly stark.’ He went on to describe the fate of Madurantakam lake, and narrated a bit of the conversation he had many earlier on projected global water shortages with Mr Verma. ‘I feel it in my bones, Nigel, that emerging water scarcity is a good development problem to tackle. If you can find a practical way to deepen the storage capacities of lakes, and maintain the same against all natural and man-made phenomena, it would be a great way to contribute to society. However, Nigel, I am at loss to find a practical way to do that, and that is the purpose of this call. Do you have any ideas on how I can go about it?’ ‘Indeed, I do, my dear CLN. Why don’t to come to New York on a Ford Foundation fellowship for two years, and spend your time here evolving practical solutions to preserve and to rejuvenate lakes all over the world? Of course, it would mean you have to take a hiatus from climbing the hierarchy in the Indian bureaucracy’. CLN thanked his friend for his spontaneous offer of a fellowship, and promised to reflect on it seriously.

Two weeks after this telephone call with Nigel, CLN was seated in front of the Chief Secretary in his cavernous office. The CS was somewhat perplexed at the odd request coming from CLN. He said, ‘Frankly I don’t understand your application to go on a study leave for two years, coming at this stage of your career. Man, don’t you realise you are in the zone, as they say, very much primed to go places. Taking two years off at this time would very much slow down, even derail, your career in the services. You must factor in that consideration in your decision making’. He concluded, ‘study leaves and deputations are for people who get stuck in their career midway within the service, and not for a savvy high flyer like you. I sincerely hope you know what you are doing’.

Seated in the cramped economy class on his way to New York, CLN had ample time to reflect on what he was going to do during his fellowship. For nearly twenty hours or so during the journey he was genuinely free from thoughts about his earlier administrative roles, and could focus on the future. ‘Whatever I am going to do, I don’t want the next two years to be a strictly academic exercise. The focus should be on finding practical, implementable solutions which work. I am not going to New York to cool my heels writing scholarly reports for the next two years, that is for sure’. When he reached NYC he hit the ground running as they say in America. From his tiny cubicle in Ford Foundation offices in Manhattan he fully leveraged the global reach of the foundation in terms of resources and contacts. Over the next several months he studied a number research papers of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and took field visits to their locations in Africa and Asia to study the effectiveness of the technology employed to preserve water. With particular reference to lakes, he studied the effects of water evaporation due to atmospheric conditions like temperature and humidity, effects of water absorption into the lake bed and means of slowing them down, and finally the dynamics of lake beds silting up over time due to annual monsoon inflows. That effort took him across the civil engineering departments of many engineering schools in the US, Europe and Japan to gather the best practices in soil mechanics and erosion. He studied the effects of porous carpeting material used to line the sidewalls and lake bottoms, calculated to slow down the water absorption by the soil. To round it off, he also studied the population and habitat effects on lakes around their periphery, in particular flow of sewage water and contamination effects thereof. How do various societies prevent such manmade pollution on their water resources was an interesting, if relatively difficult, problem to categorise uniformly.

In line with his promise to himself about evolving practical solutions, he was beginning to tackle an important problem, which is progressive silting-up of lake beds. If marine dredgers could deepen the seaways and ports, why not use some aspects of dredging technology to de-silt lakes periodically to keep them deep, he thought. Of course marine dredgers were too big for lakes since they move around only in large, deep waterways and operate in massive port inlets. One other problem was that dredgers, big or small, were all sea going, water-bound vessels while the lakes are all inland bound. One would need a dredger which can be easily transported overland, and reassembled on a lake before it can begin its dredging operations. With his mind full of such thoughts, he decided to seek the help of the largest dreadging company in the world, Boskalis, a Dutch engineering company internationally known for tackling complex dredging jobs. He decided to pull some strings from the Ford Foundation network to seek a meeting with the CEO of Boskalis.

Soon CLN found himself in the company of Bram Van de Berg, the charismatic CEO of Boskalis in their Rotterdam headquarters. ‘I didn’t know Ford Foundation was in the need for marine dredging operations’ was the direct way the Dutchman opened the conversation. CLN was ready with his pitch, ‘We are not talking about marine dredging here, Bram, but the need to de-silt thousands of fresh water lakes, big and small, littered around the world.’ He then went on to describe the need for smaller versions of dredging solutions which can be transported to reach these lakes located away from the oceans. Bram Van de Berg listened patiently to CLN’s pitch, and started speaking, ‘Yes, CLN, I agree this is an interesting problem, but you must know we deal only in big-ticket marine dredging projects, as commercial propositions go. However, there is nothing to stop us from developing a new technical solution for your problem. Leave it with me for a couple of weeks, let me talk to our engineering chief to see if we can think of something experimental before we meet next.’

True to his word, Bram Van de Berg called CLN some weeks later. In an excited voice he told CLN, ‘We might have something interesting to show you. Why don’t you come over to Holland next week? You may be able to see something a little more than a concept.’ A car was waiting for CLN when he emerged out of Schipol airport, taking him directly to the banks of a medium sized lake about a hundred kilometres away. Bram and the engineering head of Boskalis emerged from a trailer there and pointed to a 40ft shipping container behind them. ‘We dragged you all the way from New York, CLN, just to demonstrate our new dredging, excuse me, de-silting device to you, take a look’. Just then the door of the container opened, and a narrow boat-like craft emerged from it. On it the engineers assembled a number of attachments, powerful vacuum suction pumps and long flexible pipes, and the assembly took the form of a miniature dredging craft right in front of their eyes. On its own power, the craft went into the water, moved around a bit before steadily floating at a spot one hundred metres from the banks. When the chief engineer gave a hand signal, the two-man crew on the device began to operate the de-silting equipment on board. Within 30 minute of arrival there, CLN could see a thick slurry carrying the muddy sediment from the lake bed flowing out of the discharge pipe attached to the craft, and getting deposited on the banks. Bram was grinning with pride when he addressed CLN, ‘You may not believe me when I say this is the first time I myself am seeing this de-silting gadget work, and I am deeply impressed. We assembled this craft from our existing inventory of materials and parts, so we could do this prototype project in a short time. Given some more time the craft can be improved to become lighter and more easily assemblable, even with relatively unskilled workmen.’ CLN was silent for a while absorbing the whole experience; for him this moment marked the practical culmination of an idea, vision even, of something he had imagined as an amateur water resources man. He began to speak, ‘Congratulations, Bram and your team. This de-silting solution for inland lakes meets all our criteria: it is mobile, easily assembled and dis-assembled on site, does an efficient job of de-silting with just a two-man team and doesn’t mess up the quality of water in the lake’. Van de Berg could not help boasting a little about his team’s work, ‘You should know you came to the right place for an innovative solution, combining problems of water management and de-silting; in Holland we have dealt with precisely these problems for a thousand years, and Boskalis has dredged more sand out of the seas than all the sands in Arabia’. He was of course exaggerating about the sands in Arabia, but what the hell, the man had reasons to be proud.

Back in New York, CLN briefed his boss Nigel Barber about the potential of this de-silting solution and how it can be deployed effectively in many developing countries. On behalf of Ford Foundation Nigel readily agreed to sponsor an experimental project to deploy the Boskalis device in five lakes in Africa and Asia, to prove that their solution was workable in the field. For the next six months CLN’s life was a whirlwind of activity coordinating with Bram and his team for equipment and doing the actual field work in diverse locations like, Kolar district in Karnataka and various lake fronts in Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania. As promised Boskalis had substantially improved the prototype de-silting device and now it became sleeker, lighter and more adapted to tropical usage. Together they were able to show that use of these devices would progressively increase the depth of lakes by anywhere between five feet up to fifteen feet. ‘We are talking here of increasing the lakes’ holding capacity from forty to even three hundred percent, depending on how efficiently the work is done’ CLN was quietly summarising to his colleagues.

Towards the end of his fellowship, CLN found himself as the keynote speaker at the World Development Forum, in its annual conclave sponsored by the World Bank. He highlighted the problems of lakes all over the developing world, gradually diminishing their potential to serve the fresh water needs of its population. He highlighted various practical solutions to deal with them. It was when he showed the field images and a video of the Boskalis de-silting equipment in operation the international audience sat up and took notice. ‘This portable de-silting equipment, transported to any place in the world, and assembled in a matter of minutes, has the potential to solve the global water shortage in one fell swoop. If you add other innovative options like laying a porous carpet of lining material in all lake beds, we would be able to permanently find a solution to a global problem plaguing poorer nations for decades’ he concluded.

‘This fellowship gig has been a good thing for me. Now that it is coming to an end now, what am going to do?’ CLN was thinking about his immediate future. After all the excitement of recent times, going back to an administrative job back in India seemed a little tame and even pointless. In the event it was his friend from Boskalis who made up his mind for him. Bram Van de Berg called him from Rotterdam one morning, ‘This is not just a social call, CLN, it is a motivated call, so be on your guard’ he was joking. He went on ‘You see, we, meaning the entire board of Boskalis, feel that the new de-silting thing we worked on has a global potential of perhaps several billion dollars. Along with a few other technologies dealing with fresh water resources, we wish to package the whole thing into a new company. We even have a name for it, Clean Water Technologies. I can’t think of a better person to head it than you. Why don’t you reflect on it and get back to me on what you think?’ 

When in doubt consult a mentor, that was CLN’s motto all along. Accordingly he spoke to Nigel Barber on this offer from Bram and his dilemma about leaving the civil service in India. Nigel in his typically thoughtful way did not give a firm solution to CLN, but merely elaborated the implications of choosing one option over the other. ‘Do you realise CLN you now face the classic dilemma of facing alternatives at two extreme ends of the safety scale. Choose to remain in the IAS, and you do know where and how it would progress and end; after all you have seen it for twenty years of your life. On the other hand, go with this Boskalis option, and it would be wild ride right through, completely unpredictable from one moment to the next. The de-silting solution of which you played a big part may go places and indeed solve global water problems, bringing you true glory all along. Conversely, it may also die a slow and painful death in the hands of corrupt politicians in the developing world who want to keep things as they are. Ultimately it is a question of whether you have a stomach for facing these risks involved in propagating a new, new thing. In other words how convinced are you about your de-silting solution: are you willing to run with it till its bitter end?’

CLN thanked Nigel Barber for this forthright views and went home to consult his wife on the stark choice ahead of him. The next morning he put in a call to Rotterdam to accept Bram’s offer.

A V Ram Mohan 19th May 2021