Meet H Shashidhar, the IAS man on the streets

H Shashidar:: 

 H Shashidhar born on 16/11/1950 ::Senior bureaucrat and former managing director of Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Limited


Based on Bangalore mirror::

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=1&contentid=201001182010011809451815733b784e5


To complete his PhD thesis, senior bureaucrat and managing director of Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Limited H Shashidhar personally went around the backstreets of Bangalore at night to interview elderly destitutes living on the pavements


The best and the brightest join the civil service in the first flush of idealism, hoping to contribute their mite to society and address the myriad ills that plague it. Over the years, as they settle into their official harness, most IAS officers tend to become indifferent to larger social goals and get addicted to the cocooned comforts of bureaucratic existence. But there are rare exceptions like H Shashidhar, a senior IAS officer and managing director of Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Ltd.

Shashidhar’s dissertation for PhD was on the ‘Ageing and aged in India: An integrated socio-economic and demographic study of the elderly destitute in Bangalore.’ He could have  outsourced the field work to research assistants or browsed relevant websites and records and copy-pasted them for his thesis the way it’s often done. Instead, he painstakingly trawled the backstreets of Bangalore to strike conversations with and get to know 261 old and infirm people who lived on the pavements.

It took five years for the study to be completed; he was recently awarded a doctorate by Mysore University


CITY OF HOPE
The officer, who heads the state government’s liquor marketing arm, used to venture out of his house around 9:30 pm and go in search of destitutes. He hopped from railway stations to bus stands and markets to flyovers and bridges in search of the uncared for elderly. “I could not afford to conduct the study during day time as the destitute population is highly mobile, begging or doing sundry jobs. I had to catch up with them in the night when they rest,” Shashidar told Bangalore Mirror. A first of its kind in recent times, the study was a tough one. “Initially, there were moments of anxiety and apprehension when I went to meet people whom I would not normally encounter. But I overcame the feeling subsequently,” he added.

The study threw up some interesting aspects. Eighty four per cent of the destitutes in the city were migrants and a majority of them were hopeful they can survive in Bangalore. “It used to take a lot of time getting people to speak. Many of them would be fast asleep or tired and a few of them were drunk. Some would get angry at being disturbed in their sleep. A few of them thought that elections were round the corner and that politicians had come to dole out something,” Shashidhar said.


LIFE ON THE MARGINS
The idea of learning about the city’s destitutes cropped up when Shashidhar was director of census operations between 1999 and 2003. “I realised that there was no study on the elderly destitute population, so I decided to work on them,” he said. Though he was transferred to the Karnataka State Electricity Regulatory Commission and agriculture department, he pursued this project till its completion.

The research also showed that 29 per cent of the destitutes were married, 42 per cent of them were widowed, 9.9 per cent were divorced and 6.5 per cent were unmarried. While 54 per cent were illiterate; 14.9 per cent and 6.5 per cent studied till primary and secondary school respectively. The study showed that 35 per cent of the destitutes were in the age-group of 70-79 years.

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