Scope of Improvement in Development Project Managers

The project managers of development projects which belonging to category 2 ( Self Honest & considering all others as dishonest)  are more prone to be swayed away on hearsay about dishonesty issues of all others as they are always looking for the stories of dishonesty about others to elevate their opinion about themselves. This attitude is the most powerful tool to derail or retard the performance of the development programmes.

Self Proclaimed Honesty & Integrity the biggest enemy of development

The project managers of large development projects are IAS officers in India. These project managers can be grouped in main 4 categories. 1. Self honest & consider all others honest 2. Self honest & consider all others dishonest 3. Self dishonest & consider all others honest 4. Self dishonest & consider all others also dishonest. Out of the 4 the second one is found most inefficient & worst project directors because they detract & discourage even those who have capability to contribute in the development. The first category project directors are more successful  if they have capable stakeholders. Fourth category is the second worst. As a development workers one must be very careful of the secod category.

Unless false assertion are severely punished corruption can not be controlled

The most corrupt person can always claim that he is the most honest person in the world until proved otherwise. The law protects such assertions by maintaining that a person is innocent until proved otherwise. Therefore Sarad Pawar, Laloo Yadav, A Raja, Mayawati etc  are the most honest persons & fortunately they claim so. They will die after full life as honest soul & will argue in the other world also that they had been the most honest. They will even harass the administrators in the Brahmlok on this pretext. In fact UPA is creating more problems for brahmlok too. As Indian legal system is very very slow. Because of its slow speed people have courage to adopt corrupt practices as they know jolly well that they can delay the legal process to the end of their life or beyond their life. What Hazar Anna or Million Anna can do for such persons? Kapil Sibbal, a noted Supreme Court Advocate knows this well so he was able to ridicule  Hazzar Anna.
The Tahrere Square Jamghat is needed against sluggish speed of legal system, then only one can think of lesser level of corruption.

Corruption & Poverty have a relationship

No country in this world could eradicate poverty so is true with corruption. Both are related with each other. Higher is the level of corruption higher will be the level of poverty in the country. Both these issues are most attracted in democracy as these are vote churning tools. The more you talk against poverty or corruption more will be your score in fishing votes.  The more a leader talks about these 2 words more audience he will be able to attract. These 2 words are so easy to understand that even a innocent child can understand what to talk of illiterate  adults. You take any entertaining mode, you can never de-link them from these 2 most wanted words. Anna Hazare & others are wasting time before dumbs. If these issues are solved, the politiking will die down. So who is interesting in solving them & committing suicide. All these jokers will come & entertain the intellectuals involved in the show off. 

Success creates colour blindness among critiques

The great Hindi Poet Tulsidas when wrote " Prabhuta Pahi Kahi Mad Nahi" meaning every one gets proudy after     getting power.  I thought  he was wrong but once I got deep into the meaning & its interpretation in terms of success then I realised that success makes colour blind both the critiques & the successful person himself. Once success is seen then every one around becomes colourblind with the success. In this blindness nobody tries to see the faults & deprives himself the lessons could have been learnt hidden in the success.

Service Sector Should not be managed by Government

The recent example with the Department of Post & Telephones, GOI has made me to believe it is right time for the government to withdraw from postal & telephone services. In the last month I booked new connection with Bhopal Telephones online & it never materialized. After 2-3 days of booking we started reminding. Every time new person received the call, repeated the same questions & promised for the solution. But it never was converted into action. Fortunately the GM Administration of Bhopal Telephones happen to be my friend. I narrated this story of his department. He also did not listen the story but asked the details and instructed to his junior for the job. I got the telephone installed. But the first request is still pending waiting for the closure.
Second incidence occurred with Department of Post. We  sent our tender documents by Speed Post to Patna & booked the letter from Hazarat Nizammuidin Post Office New Delhi on 18th March 2011 with a hope it will reach by 21st as 24th being the last day for the document to reach. It was sent from the National Capital to a state capital. It did not reach to the addressee even by 24th March 2011 ( i.e. today).

It appears it is high time for the government to open this sector free for the private operators. The GOI should strengthen them for the welfare of the national development rather than  protecting inefficiency & callousness in the Government.
Dr S K Trivedi

Why are we not congruent in our analysis or decisions.

I am watching the TV & listening to the opinions of the experts about India winning semi finals in World Cup Cricket. Since India won against Australia, so every one appreciates the team members & the process of their winning with all the possible praise. But when the same team lost in the past I heard the same experts criticising the same players with all possible negativity. It appears we give our opinions after colouring with the success or failures. Why? It appears we do not have faith in our analytical ability at one hand & on the other we don not want to reduce the flavour risen among the audience because of success. During the time of defeat the opinion leaders always try to assess the mood of the audience & give their analysis accordingly. Thus anlaysis  does not remain fair. Why? We do not have courage to fight the emotions of the audience. In the process we loose a golden opportunity to learn. I am a bit perturbed by the praise as it took away the opportunity from players to learn. May we the team does that in closed doors.

What ails our thinking to be global?

Our thinking is conditioned by the environment we live in & influenced by the attitudes of the persons who live with us or work with us. If we wish to think global, we need to make surrounding look globally & think globally.The next supportive factor is nurturing the criticism & supporting critic for its survival. The criticism help in widening the eyes. The criticism forces you to think the darker side of your views. As cats widen their eyes in dark, so is the critic makes you to widen the eyes. Therefore if we wish to think globally we need to promote the factors which help widening  the eyes resulting into global thinking. The main disease with us is intolerance to criticism.

Enemies of Development

Who gains from development is a deciding factor. In a development intervention the administrator or service provider is not the direct beneficiary. Therefore he does the job as a formality & with out any interest. GOI failed in all those schemes where there is no direct gain to the implementor. In the absence of any gain, the implementing agents first invest their energy to identify the gain for themselves. Their search for the gains may not consider the over all productivity. Therefore if any development scheme is planned to succeed, it should devise incentives, may be even in kind,  to the implementing agents. The development schemes if make a provision for rewards for the implementors it may succeed. If rewards are not planned, it can not succeed whatever be the level of honesty or integrity & even vigilance. At least a small note in personal file may be effective.

Affect of alma matter on corruption

I was of the opinion that alma matter has an impact on corrupt practices. I believed people educated in reputed institutions are less corrupt. It may be generally true. But there are few more factors which prompt a person to be corrupt. To me it appears that inferiority complex in a person is one of the major reason for adopting corrupt practices. A person if brought up in poor financial state of the family with loose moral values if given an opportunity, he tend to more corrupt than the opposite. I came across a person who graduated from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the best institution of the country, was totally engrossed in corruption. Yesterday I was talking to my co-passenger in Bhopal Express & I stated that persons from reputed institutions are generally not corrupt. But he refuted very vehemently & named the bureaucrat  who graduated from IIT & IIM was corrupt to the lowest level. The essence is, if society wants to reduce corruption, it should respect the persons who are suffering from inferiority complex to boost their moral for keeping away from corrupt practices. 

Speaking against corruption is crocodile tears

Who is interested in eradicating corruption?  But almost all are ready, anxious & eager  to talk against corruption.  Because talking against corruption will help them in hiding their corrupt deeds. We truly believe that more we talk against corruption more we will succeed in shielding our corrupt practices. The corruption is such a weak phenomenon which every political party reaps (rapes) & takes advantage in increasing its vote share. It is such a weak instrument that even the weakest soul in the world uses it. When I hear the leaders talking about corruption I start laughing. To me they are the best entertainers to the society. I respect the artists as they play the role while the politicians actually do. But both of them are good entertainers. The one charges the fee for entertaining while the other draws or snatches the exhorbitant entertainment fee from the government chaufers. Our legal system of the country indirectly helps in increasing the corruption by delaying the process of justice. You conduct rampant corruption but do not accept until proved. The principle of natural justice that a person is innocent until proved otherwise. The process of proving takes decades in the country. Thus it is not proved in one life ( 30-50 years) so one can be corrupt but claim himself as honest like any true honest person.

Indian politician is less of a leader than manipulator & is alyays so whether in his home or in society

Any Indian politician whether  in the group of saints or in the group of goons or among the common man, he will search job of manipulation for him every where. STRC MP conducts the training for team members of NGOs which are  run by politicians or likes  in majority of the cases. The trainees create job for themselves for manipulating other participants & keep them engaged in all kind of activities other than learning. The Indian politicians are expert in smelling the rat in every situation & good at creating chaos to prove their importance. Almost all politicians are a product of chaos take any country for that matter. For the birth of any politician first & foremost requirement is the chaos in the society/ community. Then politician emerges like a hero. If no chaos he will create that by manipulating the persons around by using all that which are called as leadership styles or leadership skills. Oh God save all the countries by these politicians.

Need to establish foundation to protect whistle blowers

It is not enough to only appreciate the whistle blowers to fight against corruption. A decade ago I was talking to a senior bureaucrat about honesty & integrity. He quipped that the society has  come up with the foundations/ trusts like World Wildlife Funds for the lions who became in minority, there will be a need to protect honest officers & whistle blowers as they are turning into scares population. The proportion of dishonest & corrupt officers  had already been very high since time immemorial. The honest persons always remains busy in his duties but the corrupt one has enough time to plot the games. Thus the honest is always kept on toes to defend himself resulting into encouragement & motivation to the other groups. The case of Sanjeev Chaturvedi & many others now indicate that a foundation to protect these honest & whistle blowers physically, financially & emotionally has become imperative in the interest of protecting & nurturing our cherished values.

Bureaucrats are the victims of inability to go deep into the problems of development

The other day I was brooding on the issue why we do not develop in proportion to our potential to grow when we had best brains of the country in bureaucracy. Then I realise that toppers of IITs or IIMs are not necessarily the most successful lot of the country.  Then a spark came to my mind that it is not their fault, it is the fault in the attitudes. How? In government services people work for getting more facilities, higher class of travelling modes, larger bungalows, crowed to greet them. These things are available to the bureaucrat in the beginning or can easily be obtained by way of favours. They never think of being appreciated for good values, success in achieving the results in implementing the development programmes. A civil servant was killed in Maharshtra. All colleagues joined together to raise the voice for safety of the civil servants but no voice came from any body to modify the system where it would not allow such miscreants to grow. They now want security for enjoying the facility rather than improved system of functioning. Our bureaucrats are the victims of their inability to go in deep to search the root causes. They wish for eternal facilities even after death. 

Why government change agents are what they are?

A government servant always worried about being questioned by any one or every one. They are in dilemma as general public considers them the king where as the politicians treat them the means to achieve their aspirations (plum position or plum money). In reality they are neither means nor the kings. They always want both aspects of the cake both eat it & keep it.  In the process they do not take decisions on issues which are not falling in these two boundaries & will always search for the pretexts not to do it. They are always scared for such decisions & treat these issues as threat to their job. Therefore leave them unattended until it deteriorates to the level of intolerance. Ultimately development issues are the casuality. Until decision making among bureaucrats comes out of this dilemma country can not develop. As development workers we face this day in day out & wait for Egypt like revolution. 

Is hospitalization a curse or boon to the developed society?

We keep on hearing from the members of our developed society that if a person gets admitted in any private hospital then he will come out as popper. Another day one of my friend quipped that the higher level of  development in curative health system only increases the cost of death. Another friend of mine quipped that health insurance has lead to the increase in cost of health services. I vividly  remember an Incidence of my close relative who recently got diagnosed as cancer patient and got admitted to a 5* private hospital in the capital of India. While walking through hospital it looks that we are in America where medical tourism on boom with patients from Afganistan & Arabian countries. It appeared there is a racket among doctors, business men & agents of the business and the insurance companies. Treatment becomes a secondary issue. primary motive is paisa paisa & paisa. For patients more than 5 doctors of different specialization will visit the patient & each persons visit is charged to the patients bill. Whether those visits were really required or not is a big question. The price of medicine of 5 Rs. in a government hospital is charged as 50 Rs. Where paisa is the main criteria, the ethics should take the front sheet. There is a need for medical audit for all these cases even in private hospitals. If our medical fraternity do not awaken at this juncture, we will damage our medical system in India & may fall in line with US medical system dominated by Insurance companies. Where poor has no role to play. These insurance companies are very efficient while processing the bills of these large hospitals why are they not concerned for National Rural Health insurance. There is a need to regulate their share of business with a predefined proportion/ share of rural & urban insurance.