New Delhi (India), June 7: Daughter Navina Jafa, a cultural technocrat and kathak dancer from India, opened up about her late father, Virendra Jafa, in a recent interview. Her father was an alma mater of Lucknow University (Lucknow, UP, India), Allahabad University (Prayagraj, UP, India), as well as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA).
Late Virendra Jafa, who was born in Uttar Pradesh, in the district of Badayun, joined the Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) in 1955 and retired in 1992 from the prestigious post of “ Secretary to the Government of India ”. Navina Jafa says, her father worked and moved in various capacities in the Government of India, to name a few, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Industry, the Post and Telegraph Department, as well as the Cabinet Secretariat – Secretary Public Grievances, Bureau of Costs and Prices, the Finance Commission, public sector enterprises, etc. Mr. Jafa had also been involved with the United Nations as an advisor to the Government of Dominica.
Virendra Jafa’s work has been connected to the finance and administration of different departments and ministries of the Indian government, especially those related to defence, pensions and group insurance.
Navina Jafa tells, during his time as a member of the Postal Services Board, the speed post was started by the Indian Post and Telegraph Office for the first time in India. Under Virendra Jafa’s astute leadership, the pension administration and disbursement for the armed forces were overhauled and modernised in a very structured manner. Virendra Jafa was deeply involved in the genesis of the Indian missile program.
Apart from an elaborate career with the Indian power corridors, Cultural Technocrat, Navina Jafa’s bureaucrat father Virendra Jaffa’s notable contribution was executed from the notable positions like
- Chairman, Tenth Finance Commission of the Union Territories
- Secretary Defence Finance, Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India
- Secretary Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
- Chairman, Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices
- Member Postal Services Board
- Advisor to the Government of Dominica, West Indies, under the United National Development Program (UNDP)
Navina Jafa’s father was a part of multiple “ High Power Committees ” (HPCs), which were confidential in nature. A very simple and straightforward personality was said to offer self-made coffee and raw sliced mangoes while someone visited to oblige his power and authority at his residence. His simplicity and quickness to understand the mind of the visitor were very quick to his trained eye.
Navina Jafa told that he always taught an altruistic path to his children. He made them work without getting glamorised and influenced between the weighted and powerful. Navina translated his advice into her career, giving her contributions to culture and sustainability. Navina was last seen on a national prime-time show on Doordarshan for her body of work in cultural intervention in performing heritage. She made her own ways as taught by her father and his experiences.
Virendra Jafa was a member of the Bhoothalingam Committee on Depreciation. It was about the business entities which are permitted to reduce their gross profits by depreciation allowances which are granted on certain specified assets. The objective was to provide for the replacement of a capital asset. Depreciation was computed by applying prescribed rates to the written-down value of an asset.
The law also allowed accelerated depreciation in the form of an additional “extra-shift” allowance in the report.
Late Virendra Singh Jafa completed his Thesis in Malnutrition from MIT SLOAN in relation to “ how delivery programs are organised ”
Notable Administration Ideology
– Making of new institutions: We make new buildings, and making new institutions is easy, but invigorating old resources to retain their values is rare. Use land in an economical manner.
– Local Resources: Development work and using available local resources should be maximised.
– Action in Maushampur, Badayun, UP: He opened three schools in a family building in the village Maushampur in Badayun district which used to sink in the rainy season. Whole literacy project for children’s library and to encourage dropouts in girls. Made metal road built to enable travel. Involving local panchayats to identify the highest educated person – a class eight student who was made teacher and later started post office for connectivity
– Equity, not equality: Equity in infrastructure to bring the community to the level to perform.
– Focus on quality, not quantity: Stop Duplication. Make one thing and not a lot manu similar purpose bodies.
– Hiring human resources: Talent nurture: local HR: leadership skills selection based on limited energy
– Map out existing resources with reference to the best production facility, with reference to missiles
proposal and outsourcing.
– Not depending and dancing on Excess Money: Not generating a white elephant with government money
– Decentralised: Invite people and smaller and larger institutions in national contribution in the way of conglomeration.
– Cost Reduction: Financial structure to reduce elementary costs and project time execution.
– Momentary projects: How to work in a rooted way, not an event-based project.
– Additions and improvements in Labor Laws: manpower development and role of education
– Capacity Building: Defence Finance for wartime and non-wartime, land development, DRDO: defence research overview.
– Re-Absorption and re-empowerment of Jawans in mid-’30s