Corona would change us

All eyes are now on the Corona or the post Corona scenario. Whether the lockdown gets over on the 14th, is extended fully or released partially in phases is what the over 1300 million inhabitants of India have on top of their minds these days.

And I do not envy the sarkar. It has done a great job so far, yet this mother of all decisions will never find favor with everyone, either way and therein lies the tragedy. 

In any case what is certain is that it would not be the same world anymore. The feeling of being a master, an absolute one at that would indeed be shattered even for the high and mighty and the presence of a supreme power would stand ingrained. 

Never before has the human race felt so helpless, confined to their homes for the fear of being infected by a virus that cannot be conquered even by the mightiest guns of the universe. Never before the movers of the nation, the great indian railways been grounded for so long and never before the planes had been lined up all over the airports even on the runaway. And runaways are meant for a takeoff not for lining up grounded planes that would not be taking off till god knows when. 

The world would indeed be a changed place. People apprehensive of travel, those who hardly set their foot on their own soil afraid to go beyond the shores for fear of a lockdown or being quarantined that one never imagined in the past. And the migrant labor may not remain migrants anymore thereby impacting the informal economy more than what can be assessed. And having lived this scenario, a precedence has been firmly set, and after all is life not only about precedences.

How one wishes that all this turmoil, the fear and the apprehensions, the realization of being minuscule in face of the unknown reality of the universe converts this human race for the better, devoid of false vanity, pride and ego and deeply rooted in the welfare of humanity.

Amen!   
   

Eyes beyond the Corona

It was only in movies so far that we witnessed hordes of people getting affected by viruses of a highly dangerous kind and that impacted the society like never before. Corona so far is apparently not in the same league like its counterpart in films, yet has created a scare like never before impacting global societies regardless of the economic or power strata those infected may belong to. Corona the great leveler has impacted the developed world more than the underdeveloped and has gone further in infecting many of the high and the mighty too besides the masses at large.

Lockdown, a word that was since used only with reference to industries whenever they faced an economic crisis or a labor upheaval has now become applicable to countries with many going under lockdown in the fond hope of recovering from the ghastly impact of the deadly virus of the twenty first century.  And apparently a complete lockdown that would lead to social distancing is the only solution. Perhaps if many of the nations that are presently leading the number of infections had acted as promptly and as boldly as India acted, the overall scenario might have been much more conducive.

Yet what needs to be faced would be faced and the price that would need to be paid would be paid. There is no escaping this hard reality regardless of the scale of the wealth and the power that different nations possess.

There is always light at the end of the tunnel and sooner or later we would have moved ahead of the era of the coronavirus. And why not, the resolve to successfully win this battle against the scourge of the virus is visible so boldly in India and in many other nations.

And therefore there is also a need to look beyond and initiate preparation for the same as soon as the impact of the virus starts showing a declining trend.  Often there are hidden opportunities in even the darkest of circumstances and we need to look for them even if it is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.

Travel and tourism is one such area that has the fastest and the biggest multiplier effect on the economy and employment. With almost all international and many domestic flight curtailed across the globe, it would be some time for the traffic to pick up even after the virus passes away. I really do not see international travel reaching the pre corona levels even two to three years after complete recovery, primarily due to the apprehensions that many of us would now have whenever leaving the shores of the motherland. The impact of the corona and the almost complete shutting down of the airlines across the globe, perhaps for the first time ever is indeed a turning point in how tourism would indeed take place in the future.

And the solution lies in planning during this period for exploiting domestic tourism to the hilt, an exercise that would continue to pay rich dividends for all times to come. Let us start creating a desire to explore the richness of our own country. Let people see their own India with its finest collection of tourism destinations, hardly explored due to the false yet widely prevalent notion that tourism is generally about long distance and mostly beyond the shores travel. A very aggressive dose of publicity and promotion that has the rich culture of the nation at its core and development of tourist infrastructure like signages, interpretation, souvenir shops, last mile connectivity and way side amenities needs to be planned and quickly implemented to enable taking the full advantage of the opportunity that lies within despite the scourge of the virus. 

  

The transport infrastructure in the organized sector like the railways, airlines, buses would need to be very quickly brought back to life and in full swing. The lull period can be utilized in carrying out thorough maintenance of the fixed infrastructure, improving passenger facilities in the moving or flying infrastructure and carrying out much needed systemic improvements that almost all organizations vie for. We need to appreciate that despite the restrictions that corona has imposed on human beings, such blatant freedom to maintain and improve the generally very heavily utilized infrastructure would hardly ever surface in future. Obviously easier said than done, yet the moot point remains that this exercise should remain on the radar and genuine efforts can be made to find ways and means to do that.

Similar strategy needs to be examined for other industrial establishments, factories and service sectors. This is the time, and a very precious one at that for carrying out improvements that otherwise would not be possible for availability of infrastructure in an unutilized state.

Let us all remain positive, for positivity is the biggest asset especially in a downcast scenario. And we are blessed by a government that is doing the best that is possible and acting in a manner that is the envy of even the developed world. And that gives many of us the confidence that together we shall overcome the challenge of the present times and emerge much stronger in the future.  

Air India story

All the major public enterprises that came my way had one commonality – its bureaucratic and political masters missed no opportunity to castigate the organization and its men for its problems. 

It however does not stand to reason that anyone other than the owner can be assigned the primary blame for the decline of an organization. We are yet to hear of a private sector enterprise in which the blame for its debacle was laid at the altar of its employees as it is invariably the owner who partakes of the nectar of success or the poison of failure.

It is indeed grossly unfair that Air India and its men have been unfairly castigated almost always for its dismal state of affairs. This very unfair reality needs to be placed in the right perspective.  

Air India and Indian Airlines were two perfectly fine airlines till they were merged in 2007. The decision to merge was not of the airlines but that of the owner, the Government of India and more specifically the then Ministry of Civil Aviation. This merger was not a minor affair for it put in great turmoil both organizations with seniority groups merging both at officer as well as staff level. With differences in HR policies, pay scales, designations, processes, structures and above all culture there was no way this merger could have led to anything other than a nightmare. The Justice Dharmadhikari committee that followed and in all fairness made efforts to sort out the imbroglio yet the merger stoked the very divide that it sought to extinguish with issues and emotions continuing to simmer even after over a decade. The organization immediately thereafter started following a downward trajectory that resulted in losses piling up.

The then government also took another decision, often regarded as controversial, that of purchasing planes of both Airbus and Boeing variety in bulk. And in all fairness it can be said that had that not been done, Air India of today would not be an airline for there would have been no planes in its arsenal. What really affected the airline badly was making it take loans to pay for the massive purchase. Even after some planes being sold off subsequently, the capital burden on account of purchase of planes and the interest charges thereon almost equals the equity infusion so far by the government against its so called turn-around plan.   

It is evident that the oft repeated statement of a dole being extended to Air India for its survival does not hold water. It is simply a case of the owner of a company paying for the capital goods purchased by it at the owner’s specific instance.

Both the loans taken for aircraft purchase and the piling up of losses triggered by the merger took the airline into a debt trap. And these losses the company started accumulating immediately after and because of the merger, a situation aggravated by the ban on fresh recruitment, high fuel prices, increasing competition from the private sector and at times an inept or conniving management. Yes the fact remains that the company was allowed to be in losses for almost ten years at a stretch, a totally unacceptable scenario.  

There is generally nothing wrong with the indian public sector except the way it is governed and the way it governs itself. Public sector enterprises that need to compete with the private, like the national carrier find themselves at a serious handicap for the inherent restrictions imposed by the general financial rules, tendering processes, multiplicity of masters and the onslaught of the three watchdogs that treat a mistake or a malafide on the same footing, make survival in a competitive environment almost untenable.   

It is a very difficult scenario that the public sector in India is generally faced with, yet it performs and therefore needs to be lauded not castigated. And moreover it is not as if the constraints are cast in stone, these are process issues that can be addressed provided there is a will. 

The Indian Public Sector is indeed at crossroads. Hamstrung by crippling constraints and castigated for inadequate deliverance, it has found a solution in disinvestment. The crippling constraints, dampen deliverance and the only way their potential can be fully exploited is by letting them free, an environment that only the private sector can provide. 

There are no easy answers, and the easiest path therefore emerges as the only alternative.  

Moving ahead with merger

The newspapers in recent times have carried reports about many railway officers representing against the merger of cadres.

It is a fact that any change in its wake brings about a slew of concerns and apprehensions. And if the change was given the go by just to alleviate the concerns, the world would not have witnessed the positive changes that have come about with time more so in the twentieth century. And the biggest phenomenon of recent times is that the pace of change is growing at a very fast rate.

Since almost the past two decades, restructuring of railway cadres has been a much debated subject as it has been visualized as a move that would synergise the railways into delivering better and meeting the expectations of a nation on the move. And why not, railway has always been a major factor in driving the economy and the better it becomes, the better it would be for the nation.

While the present decision to merge various railway cadres into one is a bold step, it is definitely not a panacea of the ills plaguing railways. The main issues with railway have been almost static passenger fares, highly bureaucratized processes, the mismatch between authority and accountability, lack of a long term vision and often taking commercial decisions on political considerations all of which together make moving forward a very difficult proposition.  

There is a need to settle these basic fundamental issues and there is no rocket science about that. These are issues that can easily be settled internally if mandated.  

Over the years various committees have also been set up to deliberate on issues plaguing railways and almost all have spoken about the need to restructure the various cadres and a few years back the Debroy committee had recommended merger of the officer cadres into two verticals – technical and non-technical.

Whenever mergers are discussed, the talk invariably veers to the ill-fated merger of Air India and Indian Airlines. These two airlines merged and in the process, officers and staff of various similar departments merged. It was not like railways wherein the merger of dissimilar cadres of officers would take place and to that extent, the railway merger may bring more complexities in its wake than the Air India one.

During my tenure with the Board, often the issue of departmental silos was discussed and various possible solutions were debated. While it is true that the current structure has flaws that hamper the exploitation of the full potential of the organization, the fact also remains that railway despite its inner contradictions has delivered uninterruptedly. However keeping in view all aspects including the fact that even at higher administrative grade levels the technical content of the job cannot be merely wished away, the best the Board could then visualize (not finalize) was permitting general managers to laterally move HAG level officers across departments after considering all aspects of the decision.

What makes mergers a serious business?

Mergers are all about merging two or more seniority groups into one. And seniority groups are all about promotional avenues and promotional avenues are all about aspirations and hence have a direct bearing on the productivity of individuals and consequently the output of organizations. Any act that can adversely affect the aspirations of a large section of employees can affect motivational levels, commitment, and pride in the organization and hence impact the organization itself. This exactly is what happened at Air India where each department even after almost a decade since the merger has a big chunk of disgruntled employees. In the case of the railway, there are eight separate cadres drawn from two different streams and differences in age profiles may lead to permanent scars due to issues related to career progression.    

The decision to merge eight cadres into one also overlooks the need for specializations. And organizations, railways are more of a transport company than a mere policymaking ministry, need specializations. After the merger of seniority groups into one, promotions and postings have to logically and legally be based on that list leading to officers occupying posts often at times without regard to the expertise and experience required for handling that assignment, with attendant ramifications.  

There is no denying that the decision to merge the eight cadres is a bold move considering the restraints that departmental biases have been placing on the organization. We should definitely move forward and the bold decision enables that, yet there is a need to appreciate that the twin issues relating to aspirations and specialization can lead to serious problems that cannot be merely wished away and would necessarily need to be suitably addressed.

We also need to appreciate that it is not possible to alleviate all concerns and major changes are painful exercises, yet having been a railwayman all my life, it pains to see the organization in turmoil.

While there is no doubt that the railway needs to transform, we need to tread with concern, care, and sensitivity to ensure sustainable success.

VANDE BHARAT - THE FINEST EXAMPLE OF MAKE IN INDIA BY INDIAN RAILWAYS

Train 18 better known as the Vande Bharat took the country by storm in January this year, and rightly so. The first train set of the nation built indigenously for intercity travel, by the oldest coach manufacturer of India, the Integral Coach Factory of Chennai in a record time and at a cost far below what it would cost to import is no mean achievement, besides being a tremendous example of the make in India initiative.    

The success of the T-18 project also brings out the inherent potential and capability of the gigantic railway system that despite its structural limitations, complex bureaucratic systems and archaic processes remains one of the finest symbols of deliverance in the country.

The “Make in India” initiative of the Prime Minister has instilled national pride and enhanced national prestige besides also emerging as perhaps the finest step in recent times towards nation building, with the Chandrayan and Vande Bharat emerging as brilliant examples of this national resolve.  

Such initiatives are unique for they foster innovation, enhance skill development, protect intellectual property and strengthen the manufacturing infrastructure in the country. The impact of the Make in India initiatives on the economic growth of the country is going to be substantial as they also focus on utilising the existing Indian talent base, creating additional employment opportunities and empowering secondary and tertiary sectors. In the long run the ongoing efforts at streamlining archaic laws and regulations, making bureaucratic processes easier and making the working of the government more transparent, responsive and accountable would lead to  improvement in India’s rank in the Ease of Doing Business index.

The first rake of the Vande Bharat train has been making an uninterrupted run between Delhi and Varanasi sans a failure and that speaks volumes about the quality achieved using indigenous resources. It also demonstrates that our home grown industry is capable of rising to the occasion and manufacturing world class products.

The creation of a new design of rolling stock normally takes a painfully long time for fruition. That the Vande Bharat could be rolled out in a very short time frame of eighteen months by the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai is almost a miracle made possible by a team of bright and bold officers led by the General Manager whose belief in the supremacy of deliverance never wavered. Interestingly the creation of this train was preceded by a plethora of sweeping cultural and environmental transformations with the factory emerging as a glowing example of the change that many organizations in the country have been vying for.

Train Sets for intercity travel so common overseas have been a dream for the nation since the last many decades. While the capability and the intent was never in doubt, what was missing was a driving force that could singlehandedly drive the project to completion through the maze of complex processes, archaic rules and procedural constraints. A breakthrough like this needed single minded resolution, will power in abundance and a monumental team effort.

In addition to transforming the bureaucratic systems, ushering in cultural, procedural and structural reforms and simplifying decision making processes, enabling such initiatives to proliferate would need simplified tendering processes and enhanced quotient of trust within the system. The complexity of the tendering processes coupled with supremacy of the L1 leaves tremendous scope for an interpretation based on hindsight and therefore a scenario where decision making invariably gets mired in bouts of fear.  

At the same time there is a crying need to protect and support those who in the interest of delivery and nation building play on the front foot and at times make mistakes identified as such in the hindsight. Treating genuine mistakes as malafide even if done inadvertently would dampen initiative.

The Vande Bharat initiative has given a new dimension to train travel in India. As a shift to “train set” type of trains for inter-city travel is very much needed and the ability to indigenously manufacture is effectively established, it is only logical that this initiative is aggressively taken forward.

In the national interest it is imperative that one of the finest initiatives ever taken by the railways is not allowed to wither away.

Indian Railways bites the bullet

THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN TIMES OF INDIA OP-ED OF 28TH DECEMBER 2019 

The recent decisions on railway reforms including the one to merge eight different cadres of officers into one vertical are a belated yet a bold move and in the right direction, if handled well. Bold because different governments at different points in time appointed different committees to look into issues related to reforming the railways and several ideas emerged, yet no government bit the bullet. Bold also because while most of the committees spoke about merger on functional lines, but  only one, the Debroy committee gave a specific recommendation, that of merger of cadres into two verticals – one technical and one non-technical.  

Indian Railways is a solid institution by itself. It has survived and regularly reinvented itself over the last 167 years of its existence. Running over 22000 trains a day passing over 7000 stations and piloted by a workforce of over thirteen lakhs, the gigantic railway system of our nation, the largest organization in the planet despite being a fine symbol of deliverance, can and also needs to do much better. Improvement in services and expansion of infrastructure, both need to fast keep pace with the aspirations of a nation on the move.

The recent decision is a continuation of the transformational reforms being actively pursued on the railways since the last two years and need to be viewed in the above context.

Railway officers are often accused of rabid departmentalism. It is true that railway is organized on departmental lines with each department having a cadre of its own. While having departmental bias in an organization that has more than one department is but natural and acceptable but only to the extent where departmental priorities and loyalties do not overshadow those of the organization.

On the other hand there is also a need to appreciate that railways being primarily a technical organization needs specially qualified and trained personnel in officers cadres for manning various facets of its operational necessities.

Efficiently meeting the gamut of specialized requirements without its constituents losing sight of the bigger picture is indeed the need of the hour.

And we have a scenario where the vast majority of officers of all cadres spend their lives within the confines of the department itself without being able to appreciate the bigger picture of the railways. Only those limited number of officers who occupy Divisional Railway Manager and then General Manager level positions, are exposed to the working of the entire railway system, and that too for brief periods. The proposed merger logically should address this anomaly.

The fundamental issue with the railways is not the multiplicity of departments. Different departments are needed for focussed and specialized attention to technical and other issues like HR and Finance. The problem however lies in having officers generally remaining confined to one particular department throughout the career perhaps on the earlier premise that even at higher levels, the technical and specialized content vastly override the managerial one. Staying lifelong in one department may strengthen technical expertise but not managerial and leadership qualities while also resulting in a narrow constricted vision even at higher levels where awareness of the bigger picture, openness to new ideas and thoughts and leadership qualities are required.

Railways had been mulling over reforming itself since the last two and a half decades. A number of committees set up by different governments in the past, namely the Prakash Tandon Committee of 1994, Rakesh Mohan committee of 2002, Sam Pitroda committee of 2012, Sreedharan committee of 2014 and the Debroy committee of 2015, talked about the pressing need to reform the railway structures and processes including possible merger of cadres. They also recommended elevating the Chairman Railway Board from the present status of first amongst equals to a clearly defined Chief Executive Officer, and also about reorganizing the Board on functional lines.  

The scenario where this largest organization on planet earth did not have a clearly identified Chief Executive Officer would now change thereby changing the tenor of the organization.

And a board drawn on functional lines, not departmental would ensure that while the Board members remain focussed towards functional responsibilities, they also have a much better appreciation of the overall picture that helps them to perform better in the assigned role. 

While the carving out of the railway budget from the general budget in 1924 was a clear indication of the then government’s resolve to run railways on commercial lines, however over the decades babugiri caught up in right earnest and brought the organization to a stage where railwaymen always found themselves tied in knots even for performing simple activities, till large scale simplifications and delegations of 2018 kicked in. Inability of the officers of different cadres to align themselves with the organizational objectives simply because of the lack of awareness of the bigger picture resulted in a complex web of knots.  

Merger of cadres is necessary for eliminating departmental bias and encouraging a hitherto unexplored open thought process. It would also open the gates for achieving excellence and encouraging innovation, provided the exercise is handled well, and definitely not like the ill-fated merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, merger that pushed the merged Air India into the abyss.

Mergers are all about amalgamation of seniority groups, in this case about amalgamation of eight different seniority groups into one, an exercise easier said than done. It is also about affecting the aspirations of individuals, most of them bright in the case of railways, aspirations that if not handled well would lead to grouses that can last the entire service career and in the process seriously dent the organization. This is what happened at Air India and we are still suffering.

While the intent is good, the proof of the pudding shall always be in the eating. The implementation of these decisions especially the one relating to merger of cadres would have to be taken forward very carefully in an extremely mature manner duly taking sensitivities and job requirements into full consideration. The framing of guidelines and rules for implementing the merger should be finalized through a consultative process and not rushed through. And the CEO should be given a fixed term of atleast three years for effectively implementing measures for improvements and growth.

Change we must for change should be the only constant in the twenty first century. However every major change leads to concerns, apprehensions and fear among the constituents and therefore often attracts resistance in the initial stages. These would need to be handled with sensitivity. We also need to ensure that the change ushered results in achieving the desired objectives without getting derailed.

The indian public sector

With many public sector undertakings steadily losing their relevance due to sliding market share or becoming financially unviable, the rationale for their existence has indeed weakened over a period of time. This scenario has often necessitated disinvestment, an exercise that would enable tapping the full inherent potential of the undertakings in the national interest.

The emergence of the public sector in the country just after independence was with the avowed objective of enhancing manufacturing and services, especially in areas where the private sector either did not exist or was unable to enter on commercial considerations. The public sector units then fulfilled a very vital need and were also regarded as the temples of modern india.

It was in 1948 that India got its first CPSU in the form of ITI (Indian Telephone Industries Ltd) and their numbers grew thereafter with now almost 300 of them operating across a wide spectrum of sectors such as banking, coal, engineering, power, oil, steel, textiles, airlines, hotels etc. in addition there are also many state level public sector units.

CPSUs were set up to play a pivotal role as envisaged in the economic model adopted by the country in the post-Independence era. Their contribution in terms of job creation, social welfare, and overall economic growth of the nation has indeed been substantial. The policy for setting up of CPSU’s was not only guided solely by profits but was primarily inspired by the need to spur growth in remote and backward areas of the country and generate employment. 

It is however since the eighties that public sector rapidly started losing its sheen due to lack of relevance or financial losses or both. Lack of professionalism compounded by the ever increasing complexity of processes, excessive oversight and over indulgence by the investigative agencies triggered this downslide.

CPSU’s were formed under the companies’ act same as that for private companies with the underlying intent that they should function commercially like the private sector, regardless of the ownership. With passage of time however, the intent got confined to paper for the bureaucratic and political classes could never truly accept a scenario where a flourishing commercial enterprise is under the ministry but not under the thumb.

Another instrument to ensure commercial and administrative freedom, something so vital for running businesses successfully, was the “presidential directive” that can be issued by the concerned ministry to the undertaking only in exigencies, not on normal commercial and administrative matters. Unfortunately over the last few decades, the spirit of this directive has been held more in breach.

PSU’s have unfortunately also often suffered an overdose of oversight, when actually it was neither envisaged nor meant to be. Too many cooks spoil the broth is so true.  

Selection of people for leadership positions in public sector undertakings needs to be based on assessment of leadership qualities and not merely subject expertise. The private sector that on the other hand is finicky while undertaking the process of selection, subsequently gives a very long rope for the selected guy to perform quite unlike the scenario where even the top management lives under the shadow of mistrust from day one. 

Governmental tendering systems that the public sector is mandated to follow while their competition in the private sector is not, cripple creativity and timely deliverance. The system focussed on the L1 is the same for purchasing potatoes, ideas, machinery, IT and in fact anything under the sun. The massive trust deficit coupled with emphasis on processes as against deliverance acts as the biggest road block to implementation. And with investigative agencies glued to finding faults that too in hindsight and treating mistakes as malafide, the process has also achieved the dimension of fear.

The fear of taking a wrong decision, judged wrong in hindsight of-course generally by unconcerned officials and then paying the price thereof has engulfed the managements of the public sector who have generally turned risk averse. Many realize that the best way to avoid making mistakes is to avoid taking a decision and this thought has spelt doom for many enterprises.

Selection of people for leadership positions in public sector undertakings is also an exercise that leaves much to be desired. The brief exercise generally focuses on knowledge rather than the leadership capabilities of the guy under consideration. The private sector that on the other hand is finicky while undergoing the process of selection, subsequently gives a very long rope for the selected guy to perform quite unlike the scenario where even the head honcho lives under a shadow of mistrust from day one.  

The abysmal financial condition of many CPSU’s in most of the cases is not because of lack of effort or capability, but because the rules and procedures mandated are not suited for running enterprises on commercial lines.

The below par realization of the potential and the downhill slide of the public sector is indeed not an acceptable scenario. Disinvestment has emerged as an inescapable administrative compulsion and perhaps the only option. After all governments are not meant to be in the business of running businesses.