RANDOM THOUGHTS

With new government right sizing the mammoth government size to increase efficiency, this is the right time to review all organisations with have added flab at the cost of efficiency whilst trying to enhance own turfs. Need to break the tired structure into flat ones is an option due to better communications.

Some of the cup ideas to cut down flab; save resources by harmonising the market forces; technology and speed of communications.

Minimum government and maximum governance is possible only with an aware citizenary

Replace Early Retirement with graduated in house lateral moment

A soldier is forced to retire early on the pretext that the organisation needs younger profile. This is a legacy good old days when the soldiers had to be rough and tough to fight in the rugged areas of Afghanistan with minimal logistic support. The average age of the male used to be around 30 plus minus five years, some one who joined the services it was enhanced by ten years or so. This was due to better medic-care and quality of food intake. Thus he retired in thirties and survived for about ten years.

These days he retires at forty but lives till seventy and works till sixty on some job and if he is a farmer he continues to work till later.

Is there a justification in releasing a soldier at such a young age? He burdens the forces with pension for almost fifty years for a service of twenty years. The service, to a retired, extends medical and other perks to his dependants (wife; old parents; children till specified age), this averages at the peak to about 7 people for 10 to 30 years. No organisation can sustain such burden, if one was to call that. Its self created and needs to be addressed.

What must be done? Increase the retirement age of defence personnel to fifty five. Have a system where in soldier moves from a physically demanding to mentally demanding as he ages and keep using his strengths of expertise in assignments which demand such skills. Soldier in infantry must move towards softer services through supporting arms and serve till fifty five. Why should a young man/officer join services when he is best utilised for more demanding assignments.

This will lead to savings; optimal resource utilisation and add to opportunities for youth in DSC/other jobs reserved for ex servicemen.

New government must force implementation. Automatically huge job opportunities get created and win-win for everyone

Ruthlessly destroy tiers and paper work

Tiers in functioning was the norm and necessity during the good old days. However the IT enabling has made this redundant. 1+1 that is one HOD and his number 2 should be good enough with minimal secretarial staff since everything is on mail- one does not need peons and clerks to type and move files. For cup of tea/coffee have vending machines.

Doable? Of course, its a big Yes. Problem would be from the old organisational system which has got use to Darbari system of function g. Other is a genuine concern- about the career progression? This can be overcome with time cum efficiency linked promotion. How to implement?

Enhance IT connectivity simultaneously cutting down paper supply by 30% per annum and in five years it should be down to minimal essential.

Procedural vs Output Culture

The babudom focuses on procedures because that’s their accountability system. Playing safe, the culture prevents him from decision making causing time delay and cost over runs.

What needs to be done is the focus on results and not procedure. The babudom must become facilitator in speedy approvals rather than procedural focus.

There is a scope of abuse/misuse of discretionary power sin bypassing the procedures. This can be overcome by announcing the waiver given as an acceptable new norm. This will encourage the decision making support system to be more enterprising resulting into win-win.

Cultural Change

From colonial masters to independent India facilitators. Easily implementable provided the system takes a feedback from those whom service is being provided and taking action against defaulters. This is easily implementable provided there in an honest intent and leadership non-corrupt.

Priority of Resource Allocation

There are never enough resources to do on all the tasks for any organisation anywhere.

The only way being followed world wide is keep re posturing the resources to meet the peak needs as various things peak up at different times. Some of the malls in India too are following this model which is quite the norm in the west.

Cleanliness at Public Places.

This seems to be a mega problem in all our cities – clean homes/ working/religious places but surrounded by filth. Morning dog walkers

walk the dogs on the roads and take great pride and pleasure in pee/shit on the road.

Paan- spitting; wrappers in parks even where bins are kept; urinating in public/ car parking and vendors on the road are some of the ills which if addressed can make a huge difference.

It dies not cost much but a little bit of self discipline or may be fine for perpetual defaulters but needs to be addressed by the aware citizens and police/ city municipality. Photo from the mobile camera loaded on the respective departmental site and may be those who have dogs/cars without garages are registered and pay a fee for misusing/abusing public services. Problem of stray dogs/cattle/monkey nuisance need to be addressed.

This will be great for the common man and the system can expect an interactive citizenry helping it improve. Genuine swaraj for a common man is the quality of interaction with the cutting edge of the governments face, viz., police, health worker, patwari; bijli wala; school teacher etc. Once there is genuine trust in the good intent of these service providers/governmental interface, its true freedom.

Hope the top leadership realises how little a common man aspires and how easy it is deliverable, but a cultural change from occupation ruler to benevolent ruler is required amongst those supervising the organs of the state.

Finally

Solution to most of the routine irritants and larger problems is with the people and they can offer simple but practical solution. Interactive and trusting government – people relationship is the key to the cherished idea of PM Modi less government but more governance

REBOOTING THE DEFENCE MINISTRY

The MOD is sick and needs shock therapy to move from paralysis; distrust; impediment; procedure bound to a benevolent and in-sync ministry.

Army has very serious problems on modernisation front and huge hollowness in existing crucial war winning equipment.

There is absence of strategic thinkers within the army or the nation.

Army is carrying on with British dresses/traditions/customs/battle honours/ history/messes/sahayak/language/other systems. This is in harmony with a colonial power where army was aloof in the cantonments to be used against the foreign/natives should the police be found wanting. The life was so organised that it was cocooned from civil society for fear of turbulence by civil leadership against the foreign powers. Thus the army was a stets within a state, having its own law/hospitals/transport/police/logistics. Some of it was necessary to maintain forces in the far flung underdeveloped frontiers in Afghanistan and other places of deployment.

There is a need for taking a deep holistic look at all facets of the Indian Defence Forces and making them truly in harmony with the national ethos and contributing positively towards nation building. There are three ways to usher in this change.

First is the incremental reforms which is an ongoing process but is extremely slow because of organisational inertia. Just to quote one example its taken the Army almost sixty years to switch over to the Indian salutations of Jai hind amongst officers. It was being followed far officers-men salutations and navy had switched much earlier.

The second is periodical review committees, we had Subramanium kargil review and Naresh chandra review committee. Both have been partially /hardly implemented depending on its acceptance to the MOD.

Third way is what the US calls a Blue Ribbon Commission. In this a commission of people with known integrity with no direct interest in the outcome is constituted. They are in turn free to solicit views/advise/opinions of best brains within /out and recommend the best practises. This is very efficiency way and one can see a commission headed by Ratan tata and Narayan Murty and few others s members doing this assignment. Radical for the Indian status quo mindset but has a great potential for deliverance rising above the narrow turfs.

The Indian Blue Ribbon Commission should focus at the following

Revamping the MOD/Service HQ. Overlaps to be cut-down by harmonising function. Scope of disbanding about ten percent flab. Ensure MOD and service HQ work in harmony rather than adversaries.

Move from procedures to output. Babudom is always weighted down by procedural requirements and not the outcome. Once accountability is properly laid down results will improve.

Ensuring experts manning the MOD- dedicated cadre/technocrats and ten, twenty and thirty percent from Navy/Air force/Army respectively. Remainder by experts/technocrats- some of the best brains may be inducted from universities/civil strata on tenure hired basis.

Indignation of newer equipment by enhancing R and D. Civil and IIT and DRDOs all work in harmony.

Enhancing the strategic thought and ideas for combating the future. Toffels book on this issue is an eye opener and the way they have gone about forecasting is simply superb. Analysing the past and talking to best minds from all fields in the international market, they have produced a superb way ahead. Our defence forces/R&D heads could take a leaf from that and it would be possible to be more realistic in our expectations.

Better financial management by reducing non plan expenditure.

CPOs retire at sixty, defence personnel at forty. Defence forces are burdened with heavy pension/health liabilities(one soldier has parents/wife and children till a certain age). The army can look at enhancing the age w/o compromising efficiency. The sedentary duties of services and some supporting arms can very well serve till sixty provided some one does the pushing. Lateral movement within the army from tougher arms to supporting arms to services with the increasing age is an option pretty well implementable.

In-house commission under CDS/service chiefs must look at the following

Stop abuse/misuse of perks and manpower.

Minimise financial wastages

Cultural/values/history being reviewed and in harmony with out glorious past rather than British victories.

Move from Clauswitz/Sun Zsu to Chankya/Krishna for quotes.

Restore empowerment in our culture/ethos

Contribute towards nation building. This could be done by releasing massive dormant resources for social good. Education and medical staff must spend two months in far flung frontiers where reach of the government is still not there. Forces stationed in peace stations must devote two months for nation building. The task could be identified by the army in conjunction with local authorities. Adopting villages/open spaces for afforestation would go along way.

Open sports facilities for outstanding sports person.

Aim for excellence in international sports and other activities

Encourage thinking rather than status quo.

Change is the talk of the nation and everyone is expecting things to improve post Narinder Modi's rise as the new Prime Minster of India. People, in/out of uniform must cease the opportunity and force a change which is good for the defence forces

IMPROVING GOVERNANCE- MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The craze for a governmental job in India is well known. In fact its become an industry to make money by everyone who can play around with the fear of unemployed youth. Poor man is willing to mortgage his ancestral property/take loan just to get into the privileged group of employees. It offers perks, security and non- accountability which is perhaps non existent in any other job. Blackmailing the government for perks just prior to elections/other moments of vulnerability has been the most potent tool of this group. This leads to release of perks even if economically extremely difficult to implement and misuse/abuse of power is of course rampant. Postings- place and appointment are available at the cost depending on the loot potential of the appointment. The system is very well geared enabling everyone up the chain to get the proportional share of the loot.

The abuse/misuse takes place through the tools of delay and discretionary powers of appointments and profit sharing by the chain of authority.

Its not possible for CBI/Police/vigilance or other state machinery tasked to enforce law to be everywhere all the time at the crime venue. This results in great honest intentions but poorly implemented- feed back is concocted resulting in a win-win for the government and poor governance continues.

Solution to this cancerous disease lies in three fundamental basics working in harmony.

First is reporting of the crime. This is best done by aware citizenry. People are everywhere and effected party and they witness the defaulters. Citizens are thus the most potent first pillar of effective governance. With mobile and cameras available with almost everyone, this massive force can lead to first crucial and paramount importance step of good governance. The fear is of retribution which many would like to avoid. Answer may lie in vigilance/police having web sites where inputs are uploaded with the proviso that the identity of the uploaded will be protected. This would be a wonderful idea and greatly assist the police/enforcement agencies in nabbing culprits/eradicating crimes and ensuring efficient performance by the governmental eyes and ears cum service providers or what one may call the interface between the people and the government.

Second step is speedy reaction by police or other supervisory agency. Its unbelievable that most citizens see the poor quality of hygiene of the thelawala giving fast foods but the inspector responsible refuses to act. Getting his hafta probably is the new charter of duty defined by himself. Any supervisor/superior who fails to enforce the laid down charter must be taken to task.(inputs from citizens basic for sack with investigation by the higher in authority) should ensure proper justice.

Third of course is the speedy punishment to the defaulter. First stage is of course is departmental procedure followed by judicial process which is extremely time consuming. This of course is being addressed by the powers that be.

What the superiors must do to curb the nepotism/hafta or whatever one calls it.

Frugal and honest living. The misuse/abuse of governmental resources for unauthorised purposes is the starting point of the organisational corruption guised as perks of service.

At the state and national level the way to qualitatively improve services is by enforcing all government employees to use the public services. Public transport/health and education will improve the day this is enforces across the board. No one goes abroad on government expense for treatment. Period. Everyone uses government transport thrice a week to come to office. Children go to governmental schools only. Impound government transport in markets during working hours.

Finally whenever a new perk is announced by any government department including pay commission, methodology to shield the common man against the juggernaut of inflation must be addressed. Let government employees not be the favoured citizens ruling over the masses, the ethos must change to WE SERVE THE MASSES AND PAID BY THE TAX PAYERS MONEY.