Systems failure

Published : Aug 10, 2007 00:00 IST

Road repair in progress in Mangalore. The methods used are primitive, to say the least.-BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Road repair in progress in Mangalore. The methods used are primitive, to say the least.-BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The state must not be delivered into the hands of workers who seek to compromise. There can be no settling for the second best.

ONE of the most vivid memories one has of a recent visit to Singapore is of a municipal worker cleaning the streets. He could well have been a worker of the Chennai Municipal Corporation or of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi or of any of the municipal bodies in the country. He looked like an Indian and was obviously of Indian origin. But he was wearing a working uniform grey overalls, black boots, helmet and gloves and working methodically, clearing every area of the street. I thought then of his counterparts in Delhi or in other cities in India, where they would be wearing the filthiest of clothes, working with their bare hands and in a pair of shabby rubber sandals and, as most of us will have seen, in a deliberately perfunctory way, leaving half the dirt strewn around him.

The reason for the same kind of person behaving in one way in Singapore and in another in India is obvious enough. It is the supervision under which the two of them work. And the supervision under which the supervisors work. The difference is in the system. In Singapore, the worker who did not work well enough would be reprimanded and if he did not improve he would be summarily dismissed. That would never happen here for two reasons: first, removing a municipal worker from his job is almost impossible, as it would invite demonstrations, strikes and political slogans, and, second, the question of removing him would not arise because the supervisor himself would never take the trouble to find out what the worker was doing.

This is a simplistic example of why systems in the country, whether of services or of development or of anything else, such as maintenance, do not work. It is not easily swept under the carpet of innumerable reasons why things do not work by saying that they are not paid enough. Very few are paid well enough at any level in public systems. And, in theory, given the vast number of the unemployed that we have, it should be possible to find replacements for bad workers.

The ailment is in the systems, systems that we took over from the colonial power, which devised them for its own ends and was, presumably, satisfied with the manner in which they functioned. The systems by which we administer our districts or various organisations that are meant to deliver educational services, health services, and build roads and bridges, are all more or less the systems the British left behind and whatever changes have been made to them have been by and large cosmetic. All the formidable Administrative Reforms Commissions that have been set up, including the present one, have produced volume after volume of material that is virtually unread and that is, for the most part, unreadable. They have never ever looked at the basis of these systems.

The basis is nothing terribly complicated. It is, simply, inspection and supervision. All systems of governance and administration are based on the premise that no one will work unless his work is inspected and supervised. A look at the systems we have kept in place for 60 years after becoming independent will make this clear. The designations in any system speak for themselves: Inspector, Chief Inspector, Inspector-General, Deputy Inspector-General or Supervisor, Chief Supervisor, Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent the list is endless. Everyone is expected to inspect the work of his subordinates, who in turn are expected to inspect and supervise the work of theirs, and so on.

But, as any serving official in any system will tell you, inspection and supervision are about the last things any of them actually do. They have learned the words, they have learned to covet the designations, but they simply have no idea what those designations mean, and if they do, they are not bothered to any great extent. Just enough to keep themselves visibly active to their superior officials so that their advancement is not affected in any way. So there are officials supervising the construction of roads and buildings whose supervision is seemingly regular if one goes by the papers. But most of us have seen examples of their supervision the classic examples are the government quarters built for officials in New Delhi, and, until recently, what were called national highways.

The quarters had, and many of them still do have, bits that broke off, pipes that collapsed and wiring that short-circuited. The window and door frames are made with the worst kind of wood and many of them are so badly aligned that they never close.

The national highways, except those under various BOT (build, operate and transfer) schemes, are by and large riddled with potholes that ought to be called craters. They have paper-thin carpeting, and stones and brick pieces are strewn about, and mud is everywhere. Those of us who have had to negotiate these highways know just what they are like and wherever possible, have tried to use four-wheel-drive SUVs like jeeps.

However, it is not so much these as the basic problems that they reveal that are of concern: the problems of close supervision, of ensuring results. Effective supervision means the ability to punish effectively poor performance and to take note of good work, which translates into some kind of material appreciation. An effective inspector of schools would be one who would visit every school, identify those that have shoddy buildings, sub-standard or no teaching aids, evaluate teachers and the school heads. So, too, with health clinics and sub-divisional hospitals and other local medical facilities.

How can the Prime Minister make promises to build India when the implements he needs for it do not exist and, worse, when neither he nor his colleagues look at this aspect with any realism? Three years is enough time to change whole systems. That they have not been changed means that either they have not been considered important enough or no one has been able to do anything substantial about them.

Yet, it is this that will destroy all that the government seeks to do, or ensure that the plans and projects actually go through. Some do, of course, but many do not. It is not enough to tout the achievements in one village or tehsil, or repeatedly laud the fact that a tubewell works. But it would be truly an achievement if, at the end of the day, everyone agreed that most tubewells were working, most national highways were well maintained, that most health clinics and hospitals were functioning well.

How much is the government of the day willing to put down to get the proper tools to do the job it has set itself? That is the basic question that has to be answered, and in doing so, the Pavlovian response of there not being enough money must be avoided. Enough is a concept that has to depend on what the final goals are. The goals must define the word, not the other way around. The state must not be delivered into the hands of those who seek to compromise. There can surely be no settling for the second best or third-class results. That, essentially, is the difference between the municipal worker in Singapore and his counterpart in Indian cities.

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