'Efficient, honest': Satyendra Jain a victim of Centre's 'dirty politics, gross misrule'

By Indraneel Mukherjee* 
It’s perhaps breaking news to some but many of us who follow this simple guy named Satyendra Jain closely in Delhi, know for sure, that there will be a long list of jobs that he has so innovatively done for Delhi. I visited his residence-cum-office in Civil Lines along with my area MLA and former law minister Somnath Bharti to discuss a project.
His easy, natural style of discourse completely floored me and I blurted out to him – how I wish I was young again and get into this working space of his to help him! To which he said, it is never too late to do that, age is just a number!
Getting back to the joblist, let us count up a few, as an exercise which inspires me a lot! Almost all path breaking new ideas have come from him, be it school classrooms, ATM machines – not money but any time medicine kiosks in Delhi dispensing free medicines, adding MRI machines on a weekly basis; everything related to flyover constructions are a few which I relate straightaway.
Let us get closer to details. Pallavi Rebbapragada, policy advisor to the Delhi government, recently brought out a series of her tweets in which she gave fine details of her studies on the departments handled by Satyendra Jain and about him in general.  Working at the Delhi Vidhan Sabha as a researcher for 2.5 years, she has been documenting data on Satyendra Jain's departments. 

Revealing her "thoughts about why every single Indian should know about this less talked about leader", let me summarise what she said in her tweets about Satyendra Jain, who is a professional architect, as is his wife Poonam Jain:

• He ran a very successful (highly profitable) architectural firm when he decided to give it all up and join India Against Corruption! At 47, he decided to no longer work for money. His ambitions ranged taking his mother on a tirth yatra to giving back to his country – none of which required money.
• He shut down his practice and joined Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). From the list of jobs, the first that come to mind are the Mohalla Clinics, which was his idea; because you need an architect to construct a clinic in less than 20 lakhs, porta cabins on pavements, in a city of complex land laws.
• From getting residents to find land to rehiring retired doctors, Aam Aadmi Moholla Clinics (AAMC) were the most disruptive of schemes ever and the lieutenant governor took quite some time to give his nod!
• Next on the list would be the hospital beds of three hospitals. Jain noticed that the per bed cost (non-AC) of hospitals at Burari, Ambedkar Nagar and Dwarka, under construction by the Congress government was amounting to Rs 1 crore. He slashed it to less than Rs 20 lakh and increased the bed strength. Sheila Dikshit confessed she would have benefited much in case she had a minister like him!
• Next in the list of Jain is not only about construction of 21,000 new classrooms but at a cost brought down when compared to their predecessors. The money thus saved from PWD’s construction projects went into offering essential drugs, free in Delhi! Capital has an Essential Drugs List! It is Jain who made such subsidies/ ’freebies’ fiscally prudent!
• It has never been easy to secure land for AAMCs to make these clinics. Jain has fought tooth and nail for each one! Before setting up AAMCs, he toured hospitals only to realize that doctors were competent but administrative and management staff wasn’t designed to cater to a large crowd of patients.
• He was the one to realize, Delhi doesn’t lack competent doctors, but management of hospitals need professional services. Ever heard of HR practices in hospitals? It is all Jain’s doing! The same hospitals are functioning way better and effectively! Every other week he inaugurates MRI machines, ultra sound facilities and modern ICUs!
• From reps of Harvard Medical School, coming to learn about AAMCs, to praise from Amartya Sen, Ban-ki-Moon, to advisors from IIT, Stanford, Princeton, Cambridge, he attracts high praise from non-political people and surrounds himself with domain experts!
• Did you know Rohini has the biggest energy storage system of its kind in South Asia, and that was inaugurated by Jain? Did you know the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), under his guidance, is setting up modern extraction wells, sewage treatment plants and reviving water bodies? Delhiites perhaps do not even know where they are located!
• Ever been to Palla or Rajokri? At a mere cost of Rs 2.22 crore, the department revived the water body at Rajokri village. The three-years pilot project which started in 2019 involved retaining excess Yamuna water in shallow reservoirs on the flood plains during the rainy/ monsoon season. All these were the thought process of one man, Satyendra Jain.
• Further still, who do you think slashed the electricity bills? It was indeed the efforts of Jain whose power department TRANSCO is cash rich (was in deep debt during Sheila Dikshit’s time) it is due to the steps he took! He implemented AAP’s solar policy and that paid off! Next on his handling list and yet one more step which secured Delhi so much. and that gets us to the question of – who got the CCTV cameras installed? It is once again Jain!
• From Farishtey Yojnaa to shutting down polluted coal plants -- to focus on cleaner, cheaper power, Jain has done everything he could for Delhi ! He may not be a dramatic orator like Smriti Irani, but this man has worked very hard, very honestly and brought innovation to governance! His story remains less known because he is not a political minister, he is a governance minister and a rare true son of the Indian soil!
• Online data is available, suggesting Jain has helped the Kejriwal government save over Rs 300 crores in three flyovers project and had earned praise from vice president Venkaiah Naidu. The project was sanctioned Rs 700 crore by the Sheila Dikshit government. This is what Arvind Kejriwal has enabled in India.

Now, after having immersed oneself in such great work of ideas and innovation, Jain is subjected to raids and constantly hounded by CBI, IB, ED, IT -- all the agencies one could think of! Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal get raided systematically. About 400 files, all get picked up and scrutinised by the Shunglu Committee – a complete waste of time, as they found nothing incriminating whatsoever.
The ED carrying out raid on Jains comes amidst official data released in Rajya Sabha suggesting that over the last years it has filed as many as 1,700 separate cases, but only nine persons stand convicted. 

It also comes, ironically, when Rahul Gandhi is given intervals in between questioning and allowed to go home but not taken into custody, while an important sitting minister with multiple portfolios is forced to waste his time in wasteful practices due to these agencies. 

It is a typical case explained so well in a Hindi film song line – “Choron ko saare nazar – aatey hain chor” (The cheats can only see cheats all around)! They just can’t imagine that good people can exist!
So this is where we stand in the quagmire of dirty disgusting politics and we are victimising good people and not letting them work cause they are constantly bringing down the citadels of corruption and threatening the existence of corrupt people.
Ashish Khaitaan, a close friend, writes, “This man is not even an accused and I am not saying that just because I know him well but ED’s lawyer, while appearing in the High Court, said the same.”
This man has been raided continuously over the years -- by every possible agency, nothing has been found till date. Just last week, 10 days back this man got raided yet again. What they recovered from his house this time was INR 2,79,000 in cash which they did not seize as it was accounted for. 

Khaitaan screams in his write-up most of what I have already said above that -- “This man has redefined healthcare…”
I used to only hear of primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare as a concept this man showed the proof of concept with his mohalla clinics, polyclinics and hospitals. He just redefined the way government should run its healthcare services.
This man showed how public infrastructure projects can be built at below the sanctioned cost and within timelines. This man has built 21k classrooms even though the Delhi government didn’t have any control on land yet they had a promise to fulfil using his architectural skills. He redesigned the existing schools, using existing land and what classrooms he has built!
And here he was in custody for 14 days, then was taken to the hospital. He had a major bout of Covid last year and has had health issues since. One can only hope that the authorities are taking good care of him.
As an aam aadmi and the Bengali blood in me boils and I protest against this act. I protest against every action of theirs, I protest against their farmer policy, I protest their anti-poor policies, I protest their letting off Vijay Mallaya, Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Mehul Choksi who took run out powder from the country and taken refuge abroad after having taken thousands of crores, over a lakh crore in the past eight years with interest!
This government has bungled in demonetization of Rs 8.5 lakh crore, and now implicates a Satyendra Jain with Rs 3 lakh accounted for money, Rs 2 crore and gold coins in some relations' accounts... this government is victimizing an innocent person ... I protest against such gross misrule!
I would like to end on a musical note, and I quote: “Bhool naa paapi, magar paap ki ziadaa nahin dukaan chalay – Ram Krishna harey, Ram Krishna harey, Ram Krishna harey -- Ram Krishna harey!”
Satyendra Jain is an elf-angel leader, we the aam aadmi know…
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*Delhi-based singer-musician