Barking up the wrong tree!

The fundamental issues facing the nation are all an offshoot of the low literacy levels arrived at by an almost negligible emphasis on education. On a lower plane however, the issues plaguing railways can be attributed to a faulty training system especially for the officer clan.

Our training institutes, unlike those of other services are regarded as sideline postings and therefore are almost always a hotbed of disgruntled officers, who remain under the notion that they have been given a raw deal by the organization. How can such officers be expected to impart leadership traits in a bunch of youngsters with fertile minds? And therefore the seeds of disgruntlement take root fairly early and take their toll as the officers find their way upwards in the railway hierarchy.

The emphasis on training routine technical matters to the youngsters is the culprit. Routine they shall anyway pick up in the first few weeks of their job assignment and therefore this emphasis is rather misplaced. The focus has to shift to training in administrative and leadership traits, traits that are conspicuous by their absence even at the apex levels in the system. Seeing the sad state of affairs in the organization, I am not surprised that the way of working in the railways is at direct variance with the established management practices that one comes across in all reputed management publications.

With absolutely no concern for administrative matters and routinely ridiculing their subordinates, the railway management trods along hoping that somehow things shall improve. Living in a fool's paradise is an apt term for the situation.

Our training modules are aptly designed for creating a pliant bureaucracy. A supple bureaucracy that does not have a mind of its own and is always eager to do the bidding, right or wrong of the powers that matter. And therefore there is no permanent focus, the focus always drifts to a new zone almost every day, guided by the misplaced sense of direction that happens to on the mind of the boss that day. And therefore a difference of opinion is almost always regarded as dissent and the best boys are those who happily swallow insults and carry out instructions without any consideration whatsoever for the merits of the same.

It is indeed sad that the training modules also do not lay emphasis on the pressing need to proactively handle our land and human resource, despite the railways being the largest landowner and the also the largest employer in the nation.

The emphasis remains on the routine and therefore mediocrity rules the roost.

Amen!