Secretary at the Ministry for Women, Children and Social Welfare
Born in 1965, Kathmandu
Bindra Hada Bhattarai underwent all sorts of hardships in Nepali bureaucracy, something women in general in Nepal choose to stay away from. Now, she is regarded as an energetic woman secretary in the history of Nepal's civil service.
Bhattarai was born on June 23, 1965 in an extended joint family of typical Newars of Bhotahity in the center of Kathmandu, where any change in the traditional system was always restricted. Being the first child of the eldest son in the family, she enjoyed immense love, both from her father's relatives as well as her mother's home.
Her father, Bishnu Hada, a retired government officer, did everything to educate his children. She joined local Balkumari High School, but changed schools quite frequently as she had to travel along with her father to Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Ilam and other districts. Bhattari finally returned to Kathmandu and joined Nepal Adarsha High School, from where she completed her exams for the School Leaving Certificate in 1982. She later joined Tri-Chandra Campus where she did her master's degree in Organic Chemistry in 1991.
Bhattari's childhood dream was to become a teacher. After doing her master's degree, she started working as a part-time teacher in Tri-Chandra Campus. There was discrimination against part-time teachers, who were scantily paid and had little chance of promotion. She, along with a group of other teachers, demanded a secure position in campus administration. A teacher challenged and mocked her to pass the examination of Public Service Commission (PSC) in order to join the campus.
She may have forgotten this teacher's name now, but Bhattari thanks him for the success she has achieved today. The teacher may have wanted to remind her that not everyone who passes the university exam could be fit for a teacher's job. On the other hand he may have intended to teach her that getting a job is not easy. But Bhattari chose to take what he said as a challenge and immediately applied for the examination of PSC. She attended the examination without much interest and hard work, but passed regardless. She still wanted to become a teacher and went to the campus again; just to advise the teacher she had passed the examination and was now eligible to hold the teacher's position. The teacher was shocked and advised her to take advantage of her hard-earned qualification by joining a government office.
Bhattari was the daughter of a government officer and therefore understood how things work in government offices. It was not that she hated government jobs, but she wanted to do something else. However, after talking with several people in the campus as well as her family, in 1992 she finally received her appointment letter to work as a chemist in the Department of Mines.
She had an inter-caste marriage in 1992 with Nagendra Prasad Bhattarai, who is affiliated with the Department of English at Tribhuvan University. The couple now has two daughters. Bhattari is one of very few women in Kathmandu not to face any consequences following her inter-caste marriage. Both families are traditional, but have accepted their decision and are now living as part of a joint family. She added, "Had my husband and my in-laws not helped me, I could not have continued my professional life or career."
Bhattari believes her husband has been very cooperative and a great help in her social and professional life. Still, traditional male-domination is there. Even in today's urban family, in which both husband and wife work, husbands generally seek respect from their wives. "When we meet somebody, we have to think from which cultural background they have come, and this helps us a lot to compromise and take things ahead," she said.
Working in the office was fine and she performed in her role well, however working for over seven years Bhattari came to find her job quite monotonous. She told her seniors she wanted to be transferred to other office. She was sent to the Ministry of Finance and started working at the Department of 'Value Added Tax' in 1999 as a chemist.
Nepal's bureaucracy means people are seldom promoted within the technical field so there is often little chance of progress. Bhattari realized technical persons and their expertise are undermined. Thus she tried several times to escape and create a career in other fields such as teaching and banking. One day, she found herself applying for a job working for someone she had taught long time back.
"It was a time of unfathomable humiliation. Almost everybody in the office was against me. I cannot say if it was because I was a woman or not, but they just did not let me work. Then I remembered that life is a struggle. You need both hard work and destiny. I found ways to survive in those circumstances."
In 2002, she sat an examination for the post of joint-secretary, which, to her surprise, she passed. It was a two-step promotion and people in her office naturally envied her. Some of her co-workers did their best to convey the message to seniors that Bhattari could not handle the post. Nevertheless, thanks to her performance in previous offices, she was posted as a joint-secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration in the same year.
Bhattari has been observing Nepal's government employment and administration through her father since childhood. Handling administrative hassles was not difficult for her and she came up with an idea to do something for women bureaucrats. She, among others, successfully arranged a provision for a man to receive paid leave at the time of his wife's delivery. Similarly, she also worked to bring change within the conventional system of promoting government staff, arguing that using the mark-sheet method should not be the only guide while promoting hard-working staff. The next year she was responsible for promoting 75 section officers to the post of under-secretary. She had staff complete a form to determine where they wanted to be posted. Of them, 70 received their post of choice and were happy. "I believe that we can get the maximum from staff if we know their orientation, and this will ultimately be beneficial to the state," she said.
Later, she went to the Department of Commerce as the Director General. It was around this time she came down hard on corrupt businessmen and launched a campaign for consumers' rights. Market inspections became regular and black-marketers were put behind bars. However, many businessmen still managed to escape. She used all her tactics to bring the market under control. She admitted that although the period was thrilling, she did make mistakes and came into controversy. "It was the time when I could do something I wanted. I proved that bringing the market under government control is possible. Still, I could not do all because of a flaw in our laws," she said.
www.nepalimahila.comBhattari was later promoted as a secretary at the Cabinet Office from 1 October 2007, where she stayed for 13 months. It was a place where competitive people were appointed as secretaries, though they could not prove their expertise. It was an even more difficult place to work.
Still, she introduced a provision to make separate desks for social, economic and other issues. She handled the desk for infrastructure and the social sector. That is, she collected information on agriculture, economics, industries, women, children, education, land management and physical planning. A database was prepared, and all information from the respective Ministries was compiled for the Cabinet office so information regarding all Ministries could be held in the one place. The system showed promise and progress; however was put on hold amid the hectic time of the Constituent Assembly election. When the election results came through, more time was taken from Bhattari's project as resources were spent on the forming of the new government. She said she had the opportunity to learn many cross-cutting issues, but could not perform well in that environment.
She was transferred to the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare in November 2008, a Ministry considered to be small, manageable and without much hassle. In Bhattari's words, it is a Ministry in which "responsibility is big, but is opened out of small concept".
Bhattari took the responsibility of secretary of the Ministry as a challenge as well as an opportunity. She said, "Now, I feel that I am in the right place. I see so many things around me which must be done for women, children, disabled people and elder citizens as well as society. But I see the constraints as well. We are covering over 80 percent of the total population, but the budget the government has provided is only nominal. For the current fiscal year, the Ministry only has an Rs 805,500,000 budget. It is smaller than that of one big project and there are hundreds of big projects to be implemented."
She added that women members of the Constituent Assembly often visit her and suggest launching programs in their respective districts. "Their ideas are good, but we cannot do what we plan because of lack of financial resources."
Bhattari is now focusing on adolescent girls' education. It is a 10-day training for drop-out girl students with the purpose of either sending them back to schools, or arranging for them to complete simple vocational training. By the end of this fiscal year the Ministry will reach 2,342 Village Development Committees (VDCs) and plan to add 600 more in the year ahead. "If we have enough money, we can develop our country with our ideas alone. We Nepalis do not lack good ideas. I believe that this Ministry can bring a change in Nepali society."
Meanwhile, the Ministry will establish a complaint desk for victims of domestic violence in all VDCs.
Written by Razen Manandhar
http://web.archive.org/web/20141011003537/http://www.wwj.org.np:80/mahila/profile_bindra_hada_bhattrai.html
No comments:
Post a Comment