Profile of Sri A Bharat Bhushan, IRTS(Retd)
Chief Commercial Manager, South Central Railway
Sri
A. Bharat Bhushan’s proud parents are Sri Appikatla Joseph and Smt Marthamma. His
father is a Freedom fighter and first Rajya Sabha Member during 1949 to 1952
(Constituent Assembly) from Dalit community. His father had been a Member of
Legislative Council during 1966 to 1972.
Being a patriot, he named all his children after National Leaders. A. Bharat
Bhushan (son), A.Indira Gandhi (daughter); A. Subhash Chandra Bose (son),
A.Vallabai Patel (son), A. Jawahar (son) and A.Joseph Kennedy (younger son -
was named after USA president who was favorable to Afro-Americans and committed
to the cause of Blacks).
Sri
A. Bharat Bhushan was born at Vijayawada, Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh on
24.05.1954. He has done his schooling from ordinary schools up to tenth
class. During 1970 to 1975, he had pursued
intermediate and graduation from Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. He was
the first Dalit student to get elected as General Secretary in 1974 during his
BA second year in Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. He secured very good
marks in BA and it was a commendable achievement in those days. Being a student leader, he helped many
students of SC/ST & BC and religiously minorities who were not able to pay
term fees and mess fees to college. He
helped such students by duly saving his pocket money and collecting from other colleagues/students
who can afford to contribute some portion of their pocket money and helped nearly
400 to 500 students during his college days.
Later,
during 1975-77, he joined MA (Economics) at Andhra University and outperformed
by securing first class, which was remarkable in past 25 years in those days by
a student from SC/ST community, especially in Economics. During his stay at university, he also helped
many students in their path to fulfill one’s aspirations; One of them is Prof.
Arun Kumar, M.A, M.Phil, Ph.d, Head of the Department of Political Science at
Kakinada. Another such beneficiary includes a dedicated Class-I officer who
worked as a humble server in a Hotel.
He sacrificed
admission in Town Planning for the sake of friends by opting out a prestigious
Diploma in Town Planning, Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat during 1978 which was a course
highly in demand. This is a course, which would generally help students to
settle down in America, London etc as Planning Officers in major cities with
decent salary and comforts. For the sake
of his friend, he has foregone this course and gave a big thrust for his life.
He
joined New India Assurance Insurance Company and efficiently worked from 1979
to 1981.
Later,
he got selected into IRTS through All India Civil Services examination 1980 and
joined Railways in 1982. He got married to K.H. Nalini, SBI Probationary
Officer in 1980. He has two children
Siddarth and Sahith who are working as Computer Engineers in USA.
For
the year 1986-87, after a long gap of 7 years, Secunderabad Division bagged the
Safety Shield award under his able guidance.
During his tenure, he was the most efficient officer and nicknamed as “Rambo”. During 1986 Safety Assignment, a major rail
accident was averted between Nekonda and Yelgur stations of Dornakal and
Kazipet Section of Secunderabad Division.
The derailment had taken place because of flat wagon lashing chain got
stuck in the ‘V’ crossing and the wheel got lifted and travelled on the foot of
the flange of the rail all the way for 9 kms between Nekonda and Yelgur.
This wheel travelling on the flange of the
rail made track into small pieces which would have caused a major
accident. Duly noticing this, he stopped
all the trains and made war footing arrangements with the help of seniors and
the track was restored for operation after 2 days.
While
working in Headquarters during 1987-90 as Senior Transportation Manager, he
improved the revenue by extra Rs.3 crores which was not in the vicinity of
passenger operations at all, by duly using extra coaches, sick coaches made fit
and new coaches which were coming out from Perambur, were utilized for the
benefit of Railways to increase the revenue.
He
was posted as Officer on Special Duty during Flash floods as 60 Kms of track
was washed away between Tuni and Anakapalli in Vijayawada Division in the year
1990. For more than 45 days, passengers
were given relief by making arrangement from road to rail and rail to road to
get connected to Tuni and Visakapatnam and back to take them to far-away places
like Howrah, Guwahati, Chennai and Trivandrum. For this work, he has got
commendable appreciation from the public and also from the then Railway
Minister Sri George Fernandez.
Another
area of his efficiency was during Godavari Pushkaram in 1991. He was seen as one of the best Crisis Manager
in Railways duly transporting 1.5 lakhs passengers as against the regular 5000
people in Godavari, Rajahmundry and Kovvur Stations. He was felicitated for his
exceptionally good job done as Officer on Special Duty for Pushkaram by State
Government of Andhra Pradesh.
He
was the first Dalit Officer in India to receive Minister of Railways Award in
1994 for improving train operations as Senior Divisional Operations Manager of
Secunderabad Division in South Central Railway.
During his tenure as Senior Divisional Operations Manager during
1991-94, he promoted 450 Guards from Goods Guards to Passenger Guards and
Passenger Guards to Express Guards. About
1100 Group ‘D’ staff was promoted to Group ‘C’ which was the biggest welfare
activity. He cleared all request
transfers (above 2000) of his staff during his tenure (1991-94) with utmost
satisfaction of one and all.
He
was selected for World Bank project in 1994 for Long Range Decision Support
System (LRDSS) and visited America twice. He worked as Director Operations in
Delhi for 5 years (1994-1999). His Guest
House in Delhi was used for more than 5 years by 15000 people duly utilizing for
boarding and lodging purposes irrespective of cadre i.e., Khalasi to Officer. He helped many poor people who have come for
any assistance. It is a continuous
process of helping people for food, shelter etc.
He
has been helping poor students who are preparing for Civil Services and more
than 20 students got selected into IAS/IPS/Central Government Services and they
will be Brand Ambassadors to work as benevolent bureaucrats like Late S.R.
Shankaran IAS(Retd), Late L. Subbaiah IAS(Retd), Late K.Chandraiah IAS(Retd),
Late Lanka Palli Bullaiah Ex Vice Chancellor AP, P.S. Krishnan IAS (Retd), K.R.
Venu Gopal IAS (Retd) and Sri K. Madhava Rao IAS (Retd), Smt Chaya Ratan
IAS(Retd), and benevolent & committed judges like Late B.S.
Swamy and to name many more who have dedicated their lives for welfare of SC ST
BC along with poor from Open Category and Religious minorities
People
like Sri Vennelakanti Raghavaiah from Nellore and Sri Ramji from Machilipatnam,
who are Brahmins by birth, motivated him for service attitude. Balyemula
Narsaiah, CPI Dalit Leader of Nalgonda Dist; Guntur Bapanaiah, CPM Dalit Leader
of Krishna Dist and in specific his father’s service motto made him to work for
Dalits SC/ST & BC.
During
2009 flash floods, Rs 5 lakhs worth of material was raised and helped the poor
and needy in Alampur constituency of Mahboobnagar.
During
the year 2010 December, AP study circle students approached for one more year
extension for preparation of Civil Services which was not agreed by the
authorities. Hence as pay back to
Society, he raised Rs.30 Lakhs from all the known sources including Officers,
benevolent people.
This
benevolent activity is still continuing and it paved rich dividends which resulted
in more than 130 persons who got jobs in different capacities in Andhra Pradesh
and Central Government Services. This is
his continuous crusade to follow the path of Dr. Ambedkar to throw away poverty,
illiteracy and fight for our rights.
During
2012, Sri A. Bharat Bhushan has been the instrumental in conducting a
procession with about 200 people in Delhi for the purpose of enacting SC/ST sub-plan
all over India.
During
2012 June, visited Laximpet along with Sri Kaki Madhava Rao IAS (Retd) and ONGC
Officer Sri D.M.R. Sekhar, Gosula Srinivas Yadav BC Leader, Raj Gopal Relli
Leader and raised worth of Rs 5 lakh material to the poor Dalits who were
massacred in that village. In 2013, he along with his team, donated material
worth Rs 2 Lakhs in Laximpet. He strongly demands that the beneficiaries must
help the poor, needy and deserving people through which the SC/ST and backward
classes may get benefit at large.
Presently,
he is running one hostel at Dr. Babu Rao’s residence cum hospital, Golnaka, Kacheguda
which is under construction. All financial matters pertaining to mess are
arranged by Sri A. Bharat Bhushan. The average expenditure per month is
approximately Rs 35,000/-. In addition
to this, there are 30 inmates who are residing in Ashok Nagar Men/Women paid hostels
preparing for Civil Services being supported financially.
He
has worked very hard in abolishing evil practices of Mathamma, Maatangi,
Basivi, Yellamma and Jogini system.
The
list of benefits has never been counted. However, the Officers Forum has
counted the incidents of benevolent activities of Sri Bharatbhushan for two and
half years and they have become 500 in number. His appeal is to make other
people to follow the footsteps of Mahatma Jyoti Rao Phule, Gnanakranthi
Savitribai Phule, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Sri Babu Jag Jivan Ram and Sri Kanshi Ram.
He
is the first Telugu SC IRTS Officer to occupy the post of Chief Commercial
Manager in the 47 years of South Central Railway (SCR).
Now
his Motto’s are “High Office with Service Commitment will help
the needy and poor”, “Strive for excellence”, “Pay back to the society with
what we can do”, “Education is the only source for annihilation of
untouchability and other evil practices”
His
vision is to train and produce 100 benevolent IAS, IPS & allied and Group –
I service officers by 2020.
The
Officers Forum has nick-named him as BIG B (Big Brother and Big Heart) with
lots of love, admiration and respect because he is the only person who has
biggest heart for the deprived.
He is also widely known as Telugu Ambedkar,
Babu Jagjivan Ram and Dalit Nelson Mandela.