Category: Uncategorized

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General Politics Uncategorized

A Missed Opportunity: The Cancellation of Lateral Entry in Government Recruitment

A few days back, the UPSC had issued an advertisement seeking lateral entry of talent into government service for several posts of Joint Secretary, Director, and Deputy Secretary levels. This created a buzz amongst many of us in the Corporate Sector. I thought it was a very good move to add talent and bring in fresh perspectives, new ideas, and specialized skills into the government.

However, there was criticism from the opposition parties because the advertisement did not mention reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the recruitment process.  One of the political parties which is part of the NDA government also criticized the move.  This move by the government was painted as an attack on the Constitution for ignoring reservations.

Yesterday, the Indian government decided to cancel the planned lateral entry. I believe this move is disappointing and undermines the potential for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government. While it is true that ensuring reservations of SCs & STs in government jobs is crucial, it is important to note that the cancelled recruitment process was meant for specialized positions requiring specific skills and expertise, not for generalist roles.

Moreover, as Karthik Muralidharan, author of “Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance,” argues, the lack of state capacity is one of the biggest hurdles to India’s development. He highlights the need for a more effective state, emphasizing state-level reforms as critical for India’s advancement. Lateral entry of talent with specialized skills and expertise could have been a crucial step towards building that capacity.

While I strongly believe in social justice and agree that reservations are required, such a policy need not be applied blindly in all situations. It is already well accepted that reservations are not applicable for Single Post cadres in the Government.  If reservations have to be incorporated even for lateral recruitment, the government may not be able to fill the positions or will need to create additional positions just to fill the quota.

The cancellation is a step backwards that will ultimately harm the country’s development prospects. Instead of cancelling the lateral entry process, the government should have explored ways to ensure that it is implemented in a fair and equitable manner.  

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Fire Safety General Uncategorized

Public Safety in India

It was horrific to read about the tragedy in Gujarat. A suspension bridge collapsed in Morbi and over 130 people died in the accident. This was a 100-year old bridge, which had been closed for repairs for the last several months and had re-opened only a few days before. While we await the results of the investigation into this incident, we need to reflect on the following:

  • As a society, we do not prioritize safety over convenience or profit.  According to NCRB’s report on Accidental Deaths in 2021 – out of approximately 400,000 accidental deaths, only 2% was due to forces of nature and 98% was due to causes like road accidents, fire accidents, electrocution, falls, drowning etc. These were all preventable deaths! Someone took a decision – delaying filling a pothole, overtaking a vehicle in a two-way road, using space for storage while blocking a fire-exit – which either a) resulted in the accident b) prevented rescue c) or both. In the case of Morbi, it appears that people in excess of the safe capacity were allowed on the bridge.
  • While we have strict laws to prevent such negligent behaviour, the enforcement and the legal system is woeful. There are cases which have gone through the court system for decades – one of them being the infamous Uphar fire accident. If a person believes that the risk of discovery is very low, or even when discovered, the penalty is negligible – they will continue to violate the regulations.
  • We do not believe that anything bad can happen to us – this is reflected in data on insurance policies. According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, non-health insurance penetration in India was at 1% compared to the global average of 4%.  How many of us look at where the fire exits are when we enter into a public space? How many of us remember what to do if we are caught in a crowd rush?
  • Safety is not an important topic during elections. Social issues, economy, education, healthcare, are all very important issues which get discussed & debated. Accidental deaths have not become a political issue and hence there is hardly any focus from the governments and political parties. As the 400,000 people who died, were distributed across the country, the impact is not felt nationally.

I hope Morbi doesn’t become another statistic but will trigger a conversation and debate on public safety. While we await a public shift on the issue, we should do what is in our control – a) create awareness – next time you write a review on a public space like a restaurant – give feedback on safety b) get trained on how to react in situations like a fire, overcrowding, water, related accidents etc c) and follow the rules – however inconvenient!!

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Uncategorized

Will Suresh Prabhu get the Train back on the Rails??

It is quite apparent that Indian Railways(IR) is in bad straits – with Operating Ratio(Revenues Less Costs) at over 90% in the last several years. This has led to inadequate investments in capacity building. This combined with delayed projects has resulted in IR’s share of freight in the economy dropping from over 60% to 33% since 1980. Also IR’s proportion of passenger traffic is also hovering at around 14%. This is quite shocking considering the Indian Economy’s growth since the 1991 reforms.

Well, there is no need to look deep into the reasons for the state of IR. The singular reason in my opinion is the structure of IR which is antiquated dating back to 1905 when the Indian Railway Board Act was passed. It has clearly outlived its usefulness decades back. Whilst several countries in the last few decades have reformed the way Railways is organized, India has continued with the same industry structure.

The main problem is that IR has a structure wherein the policy, regulation and operations are all mixed up under the aegis of the Railway Board.  Because of the inherent conflict in this industry structure, economic reasoning has not been used to set tariffs – passenger fares are heavily cross-subsidized by freight charges. New projects are taken not based on necessity but based on pressures from politicians – most of them don’t even get completed. No wonder, in the last 30 years, as many as 676 projects were sanctioned worth 1,57,883 INR crores.  Of these, only 317 projects could be completed and 359 projects remain to be completed

The Modi government has announced 100% FDI in Railways. Also over the last 2 years, Public Private Partnerships have been embarked on – however unless the structure of IR changes, these measures will not succeed – no private player will want to get into a sector which is organized in such a fashion.

The government needs to change the way IR is organized. There has to be an institutional separation of roles into policy, regulatory and management functions. Policy making should be the function of the Ministry of Railways. In fact over a period of time, this ministry should become a part of the Ministry of Transport. A Railway Regulator has to be set-up on the similar lines the Telecom Regulator(TRAI) or Stock Markets Regulator(SEBI) whose role would be to help set tariffs and regulate the market forces to prevent any market failures. The third piece of the Industry – Management of Railways has to be corporatized. Also, there has to be a separation of the entities managing infrastructure and operations. Bharat Railway Network(BRN) should be set-up to own, manage and expand the Railway Network. New corporate entities need to be created to manage the current passenger services and freight services(separate companies). These companies will use the Network by paying access fee to BRN. By introducing this structure, it will become a level playing field for other private players and this will attract a lot of investment.  This will also ensure that any subsidies that may be given for passenger fares will be funded by the Government. Also, investments in capacity building will be prioritized based on sound economic reasoning. Any investments because of “social” pressures will be funded by the Government.

BRN can also invite private players to operate several railway stations on a PPP model – the land and air space in the railway stations can be monetized through setting up of shopping malls. Also existing Railway Production Units have to be corporatized and over a period of time privatized.  These companies will need to compete with other private rolling stock companies

With this kind of approach, there will be prioritized investments in improving freight network – acceleration of the setting up of Dedicated Freight Corridors, Logistics parks etc. Because of market forces, the Freight operator will re-invent themselves as logistics companies rather than remain as a rail freight company.

Similarly passenger services entities will focus on improving customer satisfaction and ensure on time arrival of trains, good passenger amenities and invest in lines which make economic sense.

What is being recommended here is not rocket science – several countries like Japan, UK, Germany & China have reformed their Railways Sector. Of course there would be resistance from employee unions and vested interests like the politicians and railway contractors. The government will need to convince the employees that this reform will actually result in more jobs as the sector will grow with the reform in the structure. Resistance from politicians can hopefully be managed by the Modi Government which has a majority and is not dependent on coalition partners.

Lets hope that Suresh Prabhu in the Railway Budget embarks on reforming the Railways along these lines. Else instead of helping the Indian Economy Indian Railways can become an albatross and pull the economy down.

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Uncategorized

Can an Indian MP have an ongoing two-way conversation with Citizens?

One of the biggest criticisms of Indian Democracy is that once the elections are over, the citizens see very little of their representatives!! When I was living in the US, I used to read with surprise & envy about how easy it was to get in touch with your Senator & Congressman.   Also, I used to read there about how Presidents would urge citizens to flood their representatives with calls and letters on their opinions about laws – in an attempt to get the representatives to vote in a particular way. It appeared that the representatives & citizens kept in touch even after the elections – it was a 2 way conversation.  Also in the US, referendums are used frequently to get citizen inputs on key issues – whereas in India once the elections are over, citizen involvement in the governance is a big zero!! The other issue is that the citizens get to evaluate the candidates during elections only for a maximum of 2 months, whereas in the US it is over several months(that itself will be a subject of a future blog!!).  So citizens get to truly interact with their representatives only for 2 months in 5 years!! And we call this democracy!!

In India, the arguments for not keeping citizens engaged  post elections are as follows:

1) The sheer number of people – The average number of constituents a Congressman represents in the US is around 7,00,000. The Average number of people an MP represents in India is 22,00,000. In Bangalore 3 MPs cover over 80,00,000 people.  The MPs & MLAs say that it is not really possible to engage!! Of course our Indian representatives argue that atleast some of them hold Junta Durbars periodically – but that is only a minuscule of people – the AAP Junta Durbar fiasco in Delhi where lot more people turned up then expected atleast clearly shows that Citizens are keen to meet their representatives.

2) Communication channels – till very recently most Indians didn’t have access to phones. Also the database of addresses weren’t really there for an MP or MLA to tap into. The addresses in different databases including voter rolls had lots of errors.  For citizens to get in touch with their representative – there was no concept of toll free numbers to call into till recently. This scenario has changed dramatically in the last few years with mobile phones & missed calls; internet access and call centers(ironically India is the leader in call center outsourcing)!!

3) MPs & MLAs can possibly do very little with the inputs – this of course is a cynical reason. But there is some truth in it – most MPs & MLAs have little influence on policies & law making –  because most of the work is done by the high command of the political parties. They also claim to have little influence in governance – the governing bodies at the state, center and corporation do the work. This argument in my view is wrong – Competent MPs & MLAs can make a difference and get themselves heard(read my other blog post – Who should I vote for – party or candidate : https://gopaldevanahalli.com/2014/03/21/who-should-i-vote-for-party-or-candidate/ ).

India being a leader in customer service outsourcing & mobile phone penetration, it is possible for an MP & MLA to come up with a scalable solution to truly engage with citizens post elections. They can do the following simple things:

1) Have a grievance tracking system in place. Any issue can be reported by a citizen who is immediately given a tracking number. The issue can be reported thru a phone call into a toll free number; thru a text message; on the web or by walking into an office. The MP or MLA would act on that issue – it could mean forward the issue to a government agency and demand resolution; or directly act on it if they have influence on it. The citizens are kept informed on the status of the ticket till closure. The MPs/MLAs can then publish the statistics on the grievances – how many received, resolution statistics, performance of different government departments etc.

2)Use technology to seek opinion on major legislation and issues of the day – referendums can be conducted thru electronic polls using mobile phones and internet. If the reality shows on Indian TV can do this, there is no reason why this cannot be done by our representatives. Once the MP/MLA gets a feel for what their constituents think, they can start having a larger influence on their party’s stance on these issues.

3)Identify the right MPLAD programs (where MPs get Rs.5 Crores per annum for development) and also track progress of the project. Citizens can tell them first hand – what is the progress of a MPLAD funded project. They can also get feedback on government schemes – for example, Right to Education in their constituency – they can get inputs from citizens on its implementation – what challenges were faced. These inputs can be given to the nodal agencies so that the implementation can be bettered.

How can they fund all this? For MPs, part of the MPLAD money can be used to fund this. I haven’t calculated the costs, but I do think a low cost solution is possible. What is required more than the money is the willingness to do this. I feel that one of the compelling reasons for a representative to do this would be a selfish reason – by engaging with their constituents, their chances of winning the next election will significantly improve.

Bangalore, being the technology and innovation capital of India, can become an exemplar for citizen engagement. Let us ask the candidates before the April 17th election in Bangalore – what are their plans for Citizen Engagement? Let this be one of the criteria for choosing the candidate.

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Uncategorized

Who should I Vote for – Party or Candidate ?

Bangalore will go to polls on April 17th –  an important question to answer – should I vote for the best candidate as the MP or should I vote for the Party irrespective of the Candidate’s competency & integrity.  Well I believe that we should vote for the  candidate and not the party. My reasoning is as follows:

  •  Bangalore has big problems facing it – water resources will get exhausted in the next few years; transport woes will only increase; Bangalore brand is losing its luster –thereby under-leveraging the promise of becoming another Silicon Valley.
  • To solve these problems – you need MPs who will bat for Bangalore – come up with solutions to these problems and then more importantly implement those solutions by working with different stakeholders – the Central Government, the State Government, BBMP, Corporates, International Agencies and the citizens of Bangalore.
  • We are a resource constrained nation and state – resources will flow only to those solutions which are well articulated & argued; seem to have a good chance of success and is being put forth by an MP who is well respected.
  • So the attributes required in an MP for a Bangalore Constituency – a) Is well respected b) Has a track record of coming up with solutions/ideas c) Is known for execution d) Has the ability to work across political divisions e) Understands the local issues well f) Is honest to a fault!!
  • I feel that such candidates are found in different parties.. there are honest, capable candidates in both BJP and Congress. Unfortunately, there are dishonest, capable candidates in both parties and more likely dishonest & incapable candidates in both parties. There are also honest & capable candidates in AAP, JD(S) and Nav Bharath.
  • It is important for us to evaluate the candidates across party lines and choose an honest and capable candidate in that constituency irrespective of the party – because the candidate will make Bangalore better and not the party.
  • And if you are wondering that the MP is also responsible for making laws which affect the whole country – my submission is that if you choose a capable & honest candidate who can fix Bangalore – he or she will also ensure that good laws are made in parliament!!

So join me in this election to vote for the best candidate and not the party!!