His contributions to People’s Plan Campaign, Kudumbasree hailed
S.M. Vijayanand, who retired as Chief Secretary of the State on Friday, received a warm farewell here on Saturday, with Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac calling upon him to embark on a new chapter of public service.
Dr. Isaac recollected Mr. Vijayanand’s crucial role in bringing about the decentralisation of governance in Kerala through the first phase of the People’s Plan Campaign in 1996, and in the growth of Kudumbasree, saying that he had left his signature on Kerala’s history.
“We have created enough democratic space here for anyone to intervene in public affairs, whether as a Chief Secretary or as an ordinary citizen,” Dr. Isaac told the former bureaucrat.
The Minister shared the history of his friendship with Mr. Vijayanand, from meeting him as a college student, to being his teacher and research guide at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS).
Minister for Tourism and Cooperation Kadakampally Surendran said Mr. Vijayanand was a role model for bureaucrats, with his dedication to service, liberal thinking, and conviction to making decisions based on public welfare instead of nepotism or partisanship. The fact that an outgoing Chief Secretary was receiving a farewell from the civil society was proof of Mr. Vijayanand’s achievement as a civil servant, he said.
Mayor V.K. Prasanth, district panchayat president V.K. Madhu, Haritha Kerala Mission vice chairman T.N. Seema, State Planning Board member K. N. Harilal, poet Sugathakumari, and Additional Chief Secretary Rajeev Sadanandan felicitated Mr. Vijayanand at the event organised by Thiruvananthapuram Pouravali at the VJT hall here.
