09-08-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Welfare of marginalised, fighting drug menace priority for new collector
KOCHI: G Priyanka, a 2017 batch IAS officer from Kartnataka, has taken charge as the new district collector of Ernakulam. Having held the posts of district collector of Palakkad, sub-collector of Kozhikode, and director of social justice and women and child development, Priyanka is only the third woman to become the district collector of Ernakulam.
An avid reader and an advocate of the welfare of marginalised communities, she speaks to TNIE about her duties and responsibilities.
What are the primary issues you will be looking into?
The focus will be on state government's priority projects like the Extreme Poverty Eradication Project, Malinya Muktham Nava Keralam district survey, pattayam distributions, and also central government priority projects, besides supporting the projects of the corporation and LSGs.
Continuing with the existing projects, for example Operation Breakthrough, will also be a focus area this month. I will need two to three months to study the district in detail.
There must have been previous administrators who tried to solve certain issues, which did not happen due to other complications. When I was the district collector of Palakkad, I started 20-25 new projects after studying the needs of that specific district. We have some ideas, but what I did in the previous district won't even be a requirement here. It is a different landscape, population, and demography.
As Palakkad collector, you were keen on looking into issues of marginalised communities. How do you view the same in Ernakulam?
I used to look into issues at Attappadi and the problems the tribal population faced there. But here, the tribal population is smaller. I will definitely be visiting them soon. We also have the issues of the coastal population and of a considerable number of migrant workers.
One of the last initiatives of the previous collector was taking steps to curb drug abuse. Any update on the project that was supposed to pick up pace in August?
That is one of the serious problems we face here. I have already started taking updates on it. I would like to do something really significant in that regard. We'll go forth with it immediately once I get a hang of the current stats.
Your thoughts on being close to books...
I love to read books and like to put it on my social media. Usually, I give only a bit of personal updates on social media, but I like to post book reviews and recommendations there.
I personally believe we are too much into screen time these days. There is this phenomenon called brain rot that is increasing among people, young and old alike. One thing I would like to tell the public is to get back to books.
Currently, I'm reading the last story of Heart Lamp (2024 International Booker Prize winner by Banu Mushtaq, a Kannada writer). It is a very interesting book (collection of short stories). Kerala has a good culture of vayanasalas (libraries) and of reading newspapers and books.
There needs to be a movement to bring that back as we are rapidly falling for the digital culture. Technology enables you, but there's always a flipside to it. Too much of it will obstruct the personal growth of people and increase psychological issues. It is high time people got back to books or any other indoor or outdoor activity.
