One of the perils of being in the business of public procurement is the fact that everybody considers you easy and fair game. You are looked at with suspicion – and your every decision is seen from angles that you can never imagine while making them. The trouble is that the population at large has a rather low opinion of those entrusted with public procurement, and that translates into instances of vendors trying to cut huge corners, trying to mollify you with shavings from these cuts.
The problem is especially huge in items in which the functionality of the material is not impaired very significantly even on large departures from the specified parameters. Items like paper, stationery, garments, linen. The standard for photocopier paper (the ubiquitous ‘A4’) is 80 GSM, but my printer works fine with 58 GSM. And how does a passenger on board the Rajdhani Express know whether his sheets have 30 warps per cm or not. The unscrupulous vendors try to exploit this idea of functionality to pass on functional yet substandard products to you. This problem is especially acute in case of material shortage. The vendor knows the level of your desperation – and knows that you have little choice but to accept what he has to offer. The material is functional; you need the material desperately; the choice is between a.) turning a blind eye to the deficiencies and accepting the material, so that everybody is happy (even you can be happy, if you are willing to lower your morals) and b.) rejecting the material – functional material, that you need desperately, and earn the ire of your bosses and colleagues from the departments depending on you for the material. Someone has said that beggars cannot be choosers – this is very clear in such cases.
Such trouble can occur only in a public procurement process and not a private procurement deal. A private procurement manager can acknowledge that the firm has given them no choice, but for the next time, the vendor will not be considered. However, in public procurement, there is no grey area in acceptance. If accepted, material is deemed to be perfect, and hence the usual penal provisions of black listing such deviant forms can never be carried out – unless you have rejected the material.
Hence, public procurement needs to be strengthened in a way on public procurement can be – mandatory confiscation of substandard materials. Current practice is to let the vendors remove their defective materials and supply fresh ones in case of a rejction. Thus, a decision to reject is an order to starve yourself as much as it is an order to penalize the firm. However, if the government can give itself the power to confiscate and use such materials as it pleases, then the supply chain is not starved, and the vendor is penalized. It is a good countermeasure to the tolerance gaming that vendors do – they try to supply the material to the lower tolerance band – and in the effort dip even lower – and then try to convince the accepting authority of the ‘functionality’. In case of the confiscation rule, all this material can be used, at no cost to the government, and exemplary deterrent is given to the vendors. It also removes the pressure from the backs of honest and sincere officers, who are often forced to accept substandard materials only because the choice of starvation is much worse.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
On State employment
While growing up, somehow, I had imbibed the idea that I was to join the State services as a means of livelihood. Well, to be honest, that was not a very big surprise, considering that in the parts of India where I hail from, a sarkari job is the ultimate achievement, and anyone who shows potential to read, right and speak coherently is expected to take on one or the other of the ‘UPSC’ exams, to get a shot at the ultimate in sarkari job – a Class I (Group ‘A’) Service under the Government of India.
Well, taking an inside view, joining the government service as a young officer certainly has its ups – one becomes the boss of hundreds to thousands of men and women – people senior to even one’s father in age. It gives an ultimate sense of responsibility when a person who has been slogging away with the pen on his desk for a quarter of century asks for your esteemed opinion on intricate matters. It instills a sinful sense of power, when those manning the notorious people-unfriendly lower rungs of Indian bureaucracy, who, at first, glance at you with the same disdain that is reserved for any 25 year old, suddenly melt into obsequious bows and start sirring you on a flash of your Bronze token. It certainly gives a sense of pride when your folks back in the village can proudly call you their own. It brings about a great sense of irony when fathers of cute chicks, chicks who are totally out of one’s league, chicks with whom the nerdy one would never have dreamt to even hold a long conversation, if one tried, come asking for your hand in matrimony. However, the best of all, is the sense of working not for some shareholders’ private gain, but for the upliftment of the nation as a whole, and for the welfare of the common man. It is with utmost pride that one looks at the glittering “For and On Behalf of The President of India” underneath one’s signature on official papers.
However, it often comes into my mind – have I joined the right arm of the State? Well, the State hs three organs – The Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The legislature is largely closed to selections, as it is on the whole an elected body. All the glare is on the Almighty arm of the State, the Executive. It comprises of two major rungs – the elected, temporary Political Executive, and their underlings, the anonymous, selected Permanent Executive. It is this Permanent Executive which comprises of the sixty something Civil Services that we have at the Union Level. Hence, being a Group ‘A’ Officer, one is a part of the executive arm, the doer, the mover, the shaker, the maker. As one has described in the last paragraph, the job is definitely good. So how does a job in the executive compare to a job in the other arms, especially the Judiciary? In my opinion, very badly.
Let’s look at the hours, the pressure, the power and the perks, one by one. Let’s begin with the hours. Well, I belong on one of the most lightly worked services in the Ministry of Railways (so complain my overworked colleagues in the IRSE, IRTS, IRSEE, IRSSE, IRSME) – yet, I work six days a week. I leave house at 8 in the morning and return home by 7. Weekends have become a blur. Even Saturday nights are not spared – yesterday I was returning from out of station duty at 10 in the night. And there are no breaks. Any leave one takes, one has to compensate in extra work later, as the work keeps on piling, and anyway, the phones keep ringing. What about the judiciary – well, the hours as such are some what similar. But then, they work a five day week, and they get vacations – real long summer vacations, 2 months of no files, no phones, no angry bosses. In contrast, here I am sitting pretty worried about the time I’m spending out of my precious Sunday in blogging. Executive 0 – Judiciary 1.
As far as the work pressure is concerned, both the organs have their backlogs. My own office has some 20 to 30 cases in all, which could not be resolved due to some difficulties. Some of them get resolved, and some new one’s keep popping up – on the whole, such cases are going down under my watch, since the higher up’s are giving us stiff targets. On the other hand, the number of pending court cases in upwards of 20 million, and rising steadily. That speaks about the nature of the thrust on compliance. Then there is the sense of responsibility. An officer of the executive is fully responsible for any decision he takes. Any mistake of his lives on in the files throughout his career, waiting like a landmine to be stepped on. On the contrary, any mistaken judgement taken by a lower judge is simply overturned by the higher judiciary, without any pain being inflicted on the lower rung for making that mistake. For a higher sense of irony, the judiciary is overturning the decisions taken by the highest offices in the executive, but in this case, the exective officers are being penalized for their mistakes. Exective 0 – Judiciary 3.
As far as power and perks go, the things really go haywire in comparing the two organs. It must be really nice to have the power to punish for contempt – even ‘criminal contempt’. Zap. Like that. The executive officer, on the other hand, is fair game, for all – the unions, the media and yes, the Judiciary. The unions in some organizations, particularly the Railways, are pretty strong, and can make life difficult for someone who tries to get the fair amount of work extracted from the subordinates. Then, the walls get covered with colorful slogans painted you as a rapacious robber, a tormenter of the poor huddled masses. The media will always portray you as a sleazy, corrupt person – guilty until proven innocent. And the judiciary, in its “obiter dicta”, will more often than not, castigates you. On the other hand, the media got a spanking of a life time when they, erroneously, portrayed a retired (clean) judge as corrupt. A Rs. 100 Crore damage is something they would not forget in a hurry. Executive 0 – Judiciary 4.
So why is it then that people are still going about the executive services more in comparison to the judicial ones. The reasons can be many. For one, unlike the Civil Services, the Judicial Serivces are open only to law graduates. Hence, automatically the crowd thins. Secondly, Judicial Services that are open to open selection are confined to the lower rungs, at the state level. In effect, they are Group ‘B’ services – and hence rank conscious people are not so keen. In fact, one of my IRAS colleagues had left a job in the Bihar Judicial Services to join IRAS. Finally, the top Group ‘A’ services like the IAS already have substantial element of judicial power incorporated in them. However, there recently have been suggestions about creating an All India Judicial Service, at par with the Group ‘A’ services. I believe that whenever such a thing is created, it will easily give the Executive services a run for their money, if not out rightly defeating them by poaching away the crème de la crème. Maybe, the next generation of those sarkari job seekers would covet the black robes instead of the safari suit.
Well, taking an inside view, joining the government service as a young officer certainly has its ups – one becomes the boss of hundreds to thousands of men and women – people senior to even one’s father in age. It gives an ultimate sense of responsibility when a person who has been slogging away with the pen on his desk for a quarter of century asks for your esteemed opinion on intricate matters. It instills a sinful sense of power, when those manning the notorious people-unfriendly lower rungs of Indian bureaucracy, who, at first, glance at you with the same disdain that is reserved for any 25 year old, suddenly melt into obsequious bows and start sirring you on a flash of your Bronze token. It certainly gives a sense of pride when your folks back in the village can proudly call you their own. It brings about a great sense of irony when fathers of cute chicks, chicks who are totally out of one’s league, chicks with whom the nerdy one would never have dreamt to even hold a long conversation, if one tried, come asking for your hand in matrimony. However, the best of all, is the sense of working not for some shareholders’ private gain, but for the upliftment of the nation as a whole, and for the welfare of the common man. It is with utmost pride that one looks at the glittering “For and On Behalf of The President of India” underneath one’s signature on official papers.
However, it often comes into my mind – have I joined the right arm of the State? Well, the State hs three organs – The Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The legislature is largely closed to selections, as it is on the whole an elected body. All the glare is on the Almighty arm of the State, the Executive. It comprises of two major rungs – the elected, temporary Political Executive, and their underlings, the anonymous, selected Permanent Executive. It is this Permanent Executive which comprises of the sixty something Civil Services that we have at the Union Level. Hence, being a Group ‘A’ Officer, one is a part of the executive arm, the doer, the mover, the shaker, the maker. As one has described in the last paragraph, the job is definitely good. So how does a job in the executive compare to a job in the other arms, especially the Judiciary? In my opinion, very badly.
Let’s look at the hours, the pressure, the power and the perks, one by one. Let’s begin with the hours. Well, I belong on one of the most lightly worked services in the Ministry of Railways (so complain my overworked colleagues in the IRSE, IRTS, IRSEE, IRSSE, IRSME) – yet, I work six days a week. I leave house at 8 in the morning and return home by 7. Weekends have become a blur. Even Saturday nights are not spared – yesterday I was returning from out of station duty at 10 in the night. And there are no breaks. Any leave one takes, one has to compensate in extra work later, as the work keeps on piling, and anyway, the phones keep ringing. What about the judiciary – well, the hours as such are some what similar. But then, they work a five day week, and they get vacations – real long summer vacations, 2 months of no files, no phones, no angry bosses. In contrast, here I am sitting pretty worried about the time I’m spending out of my precious Sunday in blogging. Executive 0 – Judiciary 1.
As far as the work pressure is concerned, both the organs have their backlogs. My own office has some 20 to 30 cases in all, which could not be resolved due to some difficulties. Some of them get resolved, and some new one’s keep popping up – on the whole, such cases are going down under my watch, since the higher up’s are giving us stiff targets. On the other hand, the number of pending court cases in upwards of 20 million, and rising steadily. That speaks about the nature of the thrust on compliance. Then there is the sense of responsibility. An officer of the executive is fully responsible for any decision he takes. Any mistake of his lives on in the files throughout his career, waiting like a landmine to be stepped on. On the contrary, any mistaken judgement taken by a lower judge is simply overturned by the higher judiciary, without any pain being inflicted on the lower rung for making that mistake. For a higher sense of irony, the judiciary is overturning the decisions taken by the highest offices in the executive, but in this case, the exective officers are being penalized for their mistakes. Exective 0 – Judiciary 3.
As far as power and perks go, the things really go haywire in comparing the two organs. It must be really nice to have the power to punish for contempt – even ‘criminal contempt’. Zap. Like that. The executive officer, on the other hand, is fair game, for all – the unions, the media and yes, the Judiciary. The unions in some organizations, particularly the Railways, are pretty strong, and can make life difficult for someone who tries to get the fair amount of work extracted from the subordinates. Then, the walls get covered with colorful slogans painted you as a rapacious robber, a tormenter of the poor huddled masses. The media will always portray you as a sleazy, corrupt person – guilty until proven innocent. And the judiciary, in its “obiter dicta”, will more often than not, castigates you. On the other hand, the media got a spanking of a life time when they, erroneously, portrayed a retired (clean) judge as corrupt. A Rs. 100 Crore damage is something they would not forget in a hurry. Executive 0 – Judiciary 4.
So why is it then that people are still going about the executive services more in comparison to the judicial ones. The reasons can be many. For one, unlike the Civil Services, the Judicial Serivces are open only to law graduates. Hence, automatically the crowd thins. Secondly, Judicial Services that are open to open selection are confined to the lower rungs, at the state level. In effect, they are Group ‘B’ services – and hence rank conscious people are not so keen. In fact, one of my IRAS colleagues had left a job in the Bihar Judicial Services to join IRAS. Finally, the top Group ‘A’ services like the IAS already have substantial element of judicial power incorporated in them. However, there recently have been suggestions about creating an All India Judicial Service, at par with the Group ‘A’ services. I believe that whenever such a thing is created, it will easily give the Executive services a run for their money, if not out rightly defeating them by poaching away the crème de la crème. Maybe, the next generation of those sarkari job seekers would covet the black robes instead of the safari suit.
On Adulthood
What is the surest sign of one reaching adulthood? Is it the range of physiological changes that a boy undergoes during his transition to a man? Or is it the attainment of big academic qualifications of graduation or post graduation? In my opinion, it is the lifting of the curtains of ‘fairness’ and the exposure to the ‘unfair’ world.
Throughout the pre-adulthood stage of the life, one is taught that one should confine oneself to the right, to the fair, to the just. And as long as one remains confined to the ‘straight and narrow’, one will never come to grief. Of course, even in the pre-adulthood days, one is often encountered with the striking arm of justice. However, more often than not, in such cases, one knows that one had veered off the ‘straight and narrow’, and one accepts the consequences with a sense of justice, if not equanimity.
However, the big bad adult world has no such ‘straight and narrow’. It’s all a big, fuzzy mess. It’s like growing up from the Newtonian determinism to the amorphous, jellylike world of quantum mechanical uncertainties. All the normal cause and effect relations taught in the ‘moral science’ lectures are contradicted. The reason is not hard to find. The world, and the Nature in itself, is simply amoral. There is a right thing to do, at one point of space, at one point of time, and in situation. Thus, there is no straight and narrow. If one is lucky, one at least has a narrow, which, though not straight, is contiguous and one is able to negotiate. Occasionally, however, there come situations where there is no ‘righteous path’ from the point one is currently situated. To come back to the path, one has to take a ‘quantum’ leap through the murky space, whose stink may cling on. So, in a sense, a breakdown of the simple moralistic world is what can be termed as an encounter with adulthood.
I had one such encounter on 10th February, when one of the very senior Bosses of mine castigated me for doing something which was right. May be it was just a flow of Nature – one is often asked to choose between the right and the difficult vs. the wrong and easy. The catch was that the right was easy for me but difficult for him. So maybe the whole tongue-lashing was an exercise in making the ‘difficulty’ bear upon me, thereby making my choice a moral one – between the right and the easy.
Throughout the pre-adulthood stage of the life, one is taught that one should confine oneself to the right, to the fair, to the just. And as long as one remains confined to the ‘straight and narrow’, one will never come to grief. Of course, even in the pre-adulthood days, one is often encountered with the striking arm of justice. However, more often than not, in such cases, one knows that one had veered off the ‘straight and narrow’, and one accepts the consequences with a sense of justice, if not equanimity.
However, the big bad adult world has no such ‘straight and narrow’. It’s all a big, fuzzy mess. It’s like growing up from the Newtonian determinism to the amorphous, jellylike world of quantum mechanical uncertainties. All the normal cause and effect relations taught in the ‘moral science’ lectures are contradicted. The reason is not hard to find. The world, and the Nature in itself, is simply amoral. There is a right thing to do, at one point of space, at one point of time, and in situation. Thus, there is no straight and narrow. If one is lucky, one at least has a narrow, which, though not straight, is contiguous and one is able to negotiate. Occasionally, however, there come situations where there is no ‘righteous path’ from the point one is currently situated. To come back to the path, one has to take a ‘quantum’ leap through the murky space, whose stink may cling on. So, in a sense, a breakdown of the simple moralistic world is what can be termed as an encounter with adulthood.
I had one such encounter on 10th February, when one of the very senior Bosses of mine castigated me for doing something which was right. May be it was just a flow of Nature – one is often asked to choose between the right and the difficult vs. the wrong and easy. The catch was that the right was easy for me but difficult for him. So maybe the whole tongue-lashing was an exercise in making the ‘difficulty’ bear upon me, thereby making my choice a moral one – between the right and the easy.
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