Management is meant to manage, but what if it mismanages or fails to manage, will it still then qualify to be called as such?
This thought echoed through my mind as I sat through the function at the headquarters of the All India Railwaymens Federation today in New Delhi. Yes it is true that the primary function of any management is to manage, but have we been able to live up to it in railways is something that bothered me throughout the event. Having failed in the primary role of providing materials, infrastructure and manpower and also in the process succeeding in bringing the organization to the verge of bankruptcy can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as the true role of the management.
It is indeed true that the integrity and commitment of the top union guys is far superior to what the top guys in railway (mis)management have. It is also true that rank incompetence of almost the entire officer cadre of the railways in making things happen is a time proven phenomenon. What is also time proven is the inherent ability of the entire fleet of babudom in stopping things from happening. Yet I refuse to accept that management can be a body that has only a negative role, and that leads me to another string of thought, that if we are not the management, then what is the difference between us and the workers, only in salaries and perks.
During my entire tenure at the division, what we got at the PNM meetings was flak for incompetence and maybe perhaps at times appreciation for our sincerity, not delivery. Appreciation only because we tried in an environment where almost everyone has given up in sheer despair. Deeply tied in knots so complex that perhaps only a superman or the lord almighty himself can unwind. Why then should officers be accountable for results and also to be answerable to the unions and the staff when the power they wield is miniscule and often not more than what a lowly employee in the railways has?
Scrap the PNM’s and be an indistinguishable part of the whole, the whole that is constituted by the over fourteen lakh employees that the organization wields its stick over is perhaps the only wise solution for a bureaucracy that is credited with repeated suicidal attempts.
