The shepherd of the hill state

Himachal Chief Minister adds some out-of-the-box initiatives to his governance matrix.

- PRIYA SAHGAL

The best leadership model is one that leads by example. This is a dictum that Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, clearly believes in. Barely six months after he took office, the hill state was hit by flash floods leading to landslides that left thousands homeless. The Congress Chief Minister appealed to the BJP-led central government for a Rs 8,000 crore special relief package in view of the unprecedented devastation. Sources in the CM's office claim that all they have got so far is Rs 360 crore of their procedural due from the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF), which is given every year. And of this sum, as much as Rs 315 crore was pending from previous years, due to an audit objection. When the state government pressed its case, a further sum of Rs 189 crore was released by the Centre, despite the CM putting in an additional claim of Rs 12,000 crore as compensation for the devastation.

As expected, the BJP claimed otherwise and did its own maths to counter this, but while the politics went back and forth, the state suffered. That is when Sukhu and his wife delved into their own bank accounts and contributed Rs 51 lakh, their entire personal savings, to the Aapda Rahat Kosh, disaster relief fund. The state was quick to follow its leader; with even little children marching to the CM's office, piggy banks in hand. An impressive Rs 225 crore was collected in what is easily Himachal Pradesh's largest public donation drive.