Unusual yarn

Taking a leaf out of Mahatma Gandhi's life, Ghaziabad Municipal Commissioner Ajay Shankar Pandey asks late-comers or truant staff to use the charkha and spin yarn to repent for their mistakes..

..The first to use the charkha was Health Officer D K K Tyagi. “Pandeyji was not happy that I had not completed drain work on Meerut road. I spent about 25 minutes at the charkha. I felt good and calm.”

..What does civic body do with yarn? "We intend to sell it to a khadi unit and use the money for the under-privileged community," an official said.

Pandey has a reputation for thinking out of the box — be it sweeping the streets of Mathura in 1994 to counter a strike by sweepers or handing receipts for the bribes that contractors offered (15 per cent of project cost) when he took charge as Ghaziabad civic commissioner in 2007.

The creative approach and the discipline it will hopefully foster is commendable. The non-linear approach is worth emulating for various kinds of institutes - schools , colleges , work places.