Three years after being moved out of Delhi following a bitter controversy over walking his dog in Delhi’s stadium, senior bureaucrat Sanjeev Khirwar (IAS:1994:AGMUT) is now back in Delhi again. He has been transferred back to the national capital after he was ousted from it in 2022, allegedly for walking his dog in the capital’s Thyagaraj Stadium during his stint in Delhi. His love for dogs is said to be so intense that the entire stadium complex used to be allegedly cleared of all athletes so that his dog could roam around.
The result saw him being transferred to Ladakh. But Khirwar has been brought back from Ladakh as part of a major revamp of AGMUT-cadre IAS and IPS officers by the Ministry of Home Affairs on the night of Dec 4.
If Khirwar has managed to stage a comeback by weathering a three-year-old storm, it is not because of any political maneuvering but solely because of his outstanding performance as an administrator in Ladakh. Khirwar’s administrative foresight that brought about transformation in Ladakh virtually made him a much-sought-after bureaucrat for Delhi. Credit goes to him for turning adversity into an opportunity.
Khirwar’s transfer to Ladakh proved a boon for the Union Territory the way he transformed the education system by standardizing the quality of education across the UT. He revolutionized winter education through digital infrastructure, opening up winter study camps, distributing tablets among students of remote areas, introducing fast-tracked teacher hiring, and collaborating with network providers like VSNL and Jio to give coverage to around 300 villages.
If Ladakh climbed four ranks from 8th to 4th position in the performance grading index of the Union HRD Ministry, it was all due to Khirwar’s pioneering work in this sector.
His love for reform saw complete adoption of the e-office system across the Ladakh secretariat. Khirwar started public Wi-Fi networks at tourist hubs and expanded digital governance infrastructure all across the UT. Besides, he was also instrumental in bringing solar-heating technology to Ladakh to beat the harshness of winter in a geographically hostile terrain.
He even worked hard to bring in harmony between two districts of Ladakh—Leh and Kargil.
As Khirwar is now back in Delhi, it is up to the Rekha Gupta government to decide how best the services of this sagacious civil servant are utilised to transform Delhi’s sagging image.
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