Anthony de Sa: Person of the Year – Excellence in Public Service

Madhya Pradesh has excelled in public service delivery and managed to create growth that is more inclusive than most other states. Anthony de Sa took over as its Chief Secretary in 2013. He is a firm believer in providing relevant interventions from top to bottom, realising fully well that there are vast variations in the type of interventions required and service delivery expectations in different quarters of citizenry. Be it social security, women & child development, education, online monitoring, agriculture or financial inclusion, Madhya Pradesh has created several successful models that others can take note of learn from. Samagra – a common integrated platform for digital inclusion and entitlement-based model of governance is unique. As envisioned by him, it provides single view of a citizen – to do with education, food security, pensions, marriage, welfare of persons with disabilities and insurance.

Each of 7.26 crore residents with Samagra Digital ID are tracked. It has already helped 28 lakh pensioners and 1.4 crore students seeking scholarships in the state in addition to verification of over 90% residents/families as priority households. In another first of its kind, the Madhya Pradesh Model of Financial Inclusion – Samruddhi – Anthony de Sa has led the banks to set up Ultra Small Branches (USBs) in in Panchayat Bhawan itself resulting in over 3,000 points of presence with over 37 lakh new accounts in these villages opened. This has made universal banking a reality in 14,767 villages. He has ensured that every resident in these villages avails banking services within 5 km of their walking distance.