Dasho Nado Rinchhen will now be a member of the Royal Privy Council
The deputy minister of NEC, Dasho Nado Rinchhen, looks back at his 46 years of service as he resigns from the civil service on February 1
In the early 1950s when the second King, His Majesty Jigme Wangchuck, visited the first public school in Haa, His Majesty threw handfuls of chocolates into the air as the students rushed to get it. Many of those students then tasted chocolates for the first time in their lives.
One of those students, who was prophesied by a local lama to become a monk, went on to become one of the most successful bureaucrats in the country.
Dasho Nado Rinchhen, the deputy minister of the National Environment Commission Secretariat (NECS), will resign from the civil service on February 1, after 46 years of successful service. He has been nominated by His Majesty as a member of the Royal Privy Council.
He takes with him a unique legacy of experience beginning at a time when villagers were forced to send a child to school and the parents tried everything possible to hide their children.
With his resignation, the country will have one man less walking to office on Tuesdays as an environment–friendly gesture. It will also mean that Bhutan will no longer have a deputy minister in the country.
With his age showing, the 65-year-old grey haired man said he is happy with his service to Bhutan who has served in many government departments.
Dasho Nado Rinchhen, from Puduna, Haa, said he went to school by a stroke of chance. In early 1950s, he ended up going to school after his elder brother, who was enlisted by the government to attend school, was away from home herding cattle.
Seated in the rotating chair at the NEC office, Dasho Nado Rinchhen reminisces, “I might have been a monk or a farmer if it had not been for the education I had in the early 50s.”
He recollects going to school in India. With no motor roads, the students had to walk for days via the Chumbi valley, cross the Nathula pass in Gangtok and venture on. His recalls his mother crying and requesting the government not to send their children to hot places in India with fear of malaria.
After attending high school from Birla Public School in Nainatal in 1959 he went to college at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) from Dehradun. In 1963 he graduated and joined the civil service back home as a dzongkhag forestry officer in Samtse the same year.
In 1975, he was transferred as the first national director of education and was awarded the red scarf by His Majesty in 1983. After 13 years in education he became the joint secretary of finance ministry and served for four years. He went on to serve as the ambassador to Geneva and the secretary of communication department. In 1993, he was awarded the orange scarf when he became the deputy minister of communication. He also served as the ambassador to India and then assumed office as the deputy minister for NEC for the past 11 years.
On his varied experience, Dasho Nado Rinchhen says he completed a full circle. He explained: “In the 1970s, the government wanted us to serve in multiple agencies to gain experience. From that point of view, I have almost completed my circle,” he said with a satisfied grin on his face.
Having served his longest tenure of 13 years in education ministry and the job he most relishes now, Dasho Nado finds it difficult to imagine that the quality of education has deteriorated today with so many facilities easily available. He highlighted the difficulties faced during his time. About recruiting teachers from India for the first time, he said, “We had to float advertisements in all the daily newspapers in India.” After the teachers were selected, some would come to the Bhutanese border town of Phuentsholing and asked which school they were placed. “On hearing about remote placements where they had to walk for days, they would refuse to take up the job and go back.”
During those days, a lot of Indian teachers from Kerala chose to come to Bhutan and Dasho Nado said “if the quality of education was good in the past the credit goes to teachers from Kerala.” He added, “Apart for their pronunciation of a luxuriously heavy stress on use of the alphabet ‘r,’ hats off to them.”
In his 11 years at NEC, the grandfather of five, said the biggest achievements have been in terms of human resource development, implementing the Environment Policy Act, the Waste Prevention and Management Act, and the National Environment Protection Act.
In 2003, there was a debate on whether Bhutan needed an environment ministry. Dasho Nado said a new ministry is not required and added that 10 ministries is a good number for Bhutan.
For more than a decade, the NEC has been solely dependent on DANIDA for funds and the extended support commitment expires by June this year. “On NEC’s request, Danida has promised a gradual phase out,” said Dasho Nado Rinchhen.
An area where the NEC couldn’t do much was regarding the establishment of the automobile workshop at Olarongchu in Thimphu. “It is bad planning by the city corporation,” he said adding that the workshop is polluting the nearby stream and the site is not environment friendly.
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If he had finished his high school in 1959, he cannot be 65 years of age today. He has to be much older.
What about his many years of stay in Nepal? What was he doing there?
He is forgetting the big mess and much more environmental problems the auto workshops had created at Changzamtog. If there is a problem at the present site, NEC is equally to be blamed.
transported me to various places in the 5 minutes of reading this article..beautifully written..