Dr J.S. Sarma

Dr J.S. Sarma is enjoying being in the thick of the winds of change that are gusting around the telecom industry. In the job for a year now, he says he is surprised at “the march of technology” that’s happening throughout the country. What is breathtaking and revolutionary is the speed with which India, with low levels of literacy and high levels of poverty, has adopted what could easily have been a preserve of the elite.

“What we see is that communication is a real need among all Indians. People are excited at being able to communicate, that’s why we’re adding 5 million new subscribers a month and why we’ve added 80 million subscribers over the past two years,” says Sarma, an IAS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre.

But he realises the need to avoid becoming smug, given that so much ground still has to be covered in connecting the whole country and given the vast headstart that China enjoys over India.

Sarma believes that no impediments stand in the way of further, spectacular growth in telecom. “Pricing used to be an issue at one time but that is no longer a problem with the advent of cheap phones.We still need a $20 phone and I’m sure it will come. I also think people realise that they need to invest in a phone if they want to communicate and will do so. And tariffs are the lowest in the world,” he says.

A colleague of his, the chief secretary of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, told him recently that people on the islands had bought mobile phones with some of the money they received as tsunami relief.But when the bureaucrat recently visited the island, tribal chieftains ceremoniously handed back their phones, saying they were useless without a network.

That, in effect, is the only remaining hurdle ?? building the necessary telecom infrastructure in villages and remote areas.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided that, if left to themselves, private cellular companies might take too long to invest the massive funds necessary to build networks. So it would subsidise the cost.

“I expect the rest of the country to be connected in the next two years. We’ll see 15,000 towers coming up in the villages in this time. It’s only a matter of organisation and funding,” says Sarma.

Spectrum is, of course, a pending and thorny issue. He says that it will have to be apportioned properly and the companies will have to use it efficiently.

Sarma enjoys travelling as part of his work to see what is happening on the ground and what telecom systems the villages have. “If you stayed in the office looking at files, it would be dreadfully boring,” he smiles. On one of his recent trips, he went to Sikkim where he inaugurated the highest telecom exchange in the country, at 14,000 ft.

Having spent a large part of his working career in north India, Sarma says that he and his wife Suchitra are not “typically” south Indian in their habits, whether it is food or lifestyle.Nor does he believe, as many south Indians do, that life in the south is gentler and less aggressive. “You get boorish people everywhere and cultivated people everywhere. I’ve been very happy in Delhi. My wife and I love it.”

Sarma’s father was an ophthalmologist in Hyderabad. He made it clear to Sarma early on that education was the most important thing in life and joked that “education is the only property I’m leaving you”. Sarma was an excellent student ?? a gold medallist at university. It was, in fact, his father who first suggested that Sarma should join the IAS. “He knew me, he must have observed me and realised that I would be suited to such work,” says Sarma.

But, just in case he didn’t clear the exam, he read geology at university. It proved to be pointless insurance for he joined the IAS in 1971. But that was not before he had also finished a Ph.D. in public enterprises at the University of Paris between 1980 and 1982.

Unlike many tourists who find Parisians haughty and unfriendly, Sarma says they were wonderful. He still speaks French but not as fluently as he used to. In those days, there were hardly any Indian restaurants in Paris. And the French are famous for being such passionate carnivores that they like to eat their steaks so rare they’re dripping with blood. But Sarma, a strict vegetarian, says finding good food was never a problem. “You had to educate people sometimes, though, and tell them, for example, that merely removing the sardines from a sandwich did not make it vegetarian!” The French connection continued later in Hyderabad when he was president of the Alliance Francaise.

On the IAS, he says it is important for men and women to join at a young age when they are fired with idealism. He has loved every minute of his career and says, if he had to do it all over again, he would repeat it exactly.

“I’ve had such fulfilling work, such variety and such an education in life and people. It was exactly what I wanted and expected. I knew ?? and was told early on ?? that if money was a driving motive, then one shouldn’t join the IAS. I joined with the knowledge that money was not the reason.”

He says that to be successful, an IAS officer needs to be “judicious” in his actions, decisions and dealings with people. “This is what builds your credibility.People should have confidence that you are going to be open, that you know how the shoe pinches on the other foot, and that you are going to be sensitive to their needs. You need a sense of balance. People don’t mind if you make a mistake but they do mind if they feel you are taking sides or being unfair.I learnt that very early on in my career,” he says.

Sarma says that he found development work more interesting and “creative” than regulatory work. Among his various posts, rural development and land reform were particularly satisfying. He has worked as collector and commissioner of land reforms in his home state and in various ministries in New Delhi.

During 1997-2002, Sarma was joint secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development. Between 2002 and 2004, he was additional secretary in the Department of Personnel and later in DoT.

Since he works till around 9.30 every evening, Sarma has no time to do anything much at home by way of leisure except watch the television news, have dinner and go to bed. He does a bit of walking but exercise clearly does not excite him.

He likes listening to Hindustani and Carnatic music and reading. For retirement, he says it could be Delhi or Hyderabad, where he has lots of family.He has not had time to reflect on what he will do. “Maybe I’ll get round to reading some French literature,” he says.