Treating symptoms!

Logically I should not be writing this piece, but my heart says I should.

The recent Kalka Mail disaster has again brought national focus and attention on the railways, albeit not for reasons that can be called flattering. The railways is now again going through the motions of finding the exact technical reason that led to the derailment and the catastrophe. While the newspapers reports cite various different plausible reasons for the incident, but it is more than apparent that each different likely reason that has been sourced and published can be attributed to a different cadre officer of the railways. Is it not unfortunate that railway officers as a clan traditionally guard their turf, the department that they belong to, even at the expense of the organization, especially at moments like these when nothing but the plain truth or an unbiased reasoning is the need of the hour.

Safety and punctuality, the two main quantifiable attributes of the railway systems around the world are symptoms not diseases, yet it is unfortunate that the national railways of our nation despite its most honorable intentions looks at only a symptomatic treatment of the issue. Is this because of our rank inability as an officer clan to do anything about the ills that the railways is beset with or because it is perhaps easy and also convenient not to deviate from the oft trodden path of merely beating about the bush to the chagrin of the entire nation.

It is logical that for every output, a commensurate amount of input is mandatory. It is also true that organizational symptoms can only be altered, for better or for worse only by giving infrastructural and environmental inputs in the right direction. Yet the sarkari tantra's of our nation perhaps think otherwise. When shall we start appreciating that mere advice, drives and coercion are not enough for achieving success even for these twin attributes.

Any organization that is bereft of a long term vision and an associated action plan shall never achieve success in the true sense. Similarly any organization the human resource of which, right from apex to the lowly always remains busy in the mundane shall also never move forward. The mundane should happen on its own and the officialdom should occupy itself primarily in matters relating to growth and achieving excellence.

The widely prevalent absence of even sheer common sense amongst folks who, by virtue of the chair they rest their backsides on, consider themselves adequate to pass value judgement on every issue under the sun, never fails to amuse me.