Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 38 :: Bombay (Part V) - A fraud and a new service

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Fraud in Akola

An extraordinary thing that I remember during my tenure in Bombay was a savings bank fraud that occurred, of all the places, at Akola. The initial reports that came in through the regional director Nagpur were that the fraud was hovering at around a couple of lakhs. In 1985 even a couple of lakhs was a big amount especially when it was defrauded. It was more so when one considered that the man who committed the fraud was a mere postal clerk. He wouldn’t have been able to earn a couple of lakhs in his entire career.

However, the amount defrauded did not stop at a couple of lakhs. It went on rising with every report that was submitted to me on the basis of my own instructions. When it hit Rs. 22 lakh I thought the time had come to get a move on and proceed to Akola. I told the PMG and he too said that it was time for me to pay a visit.

Curiously, as it happened the defrauded amount totaled Rs. 22 lakh and it had not increased since I left Bombay. The modus operandii was simple. The man deposited fresh deposits in the accounts of his children which he had opened depriving the depositor of his moneys. Being a small town it faced a lot of commotion and all postal employees were suspect in their eyes.

When I landed up the place was crawling with inspectors and investigators. Independent investigators arrived at the same figure – an amount that was too big to be defrauded by one man in a post office. The local press sought interviews many of whom wondered as to why there was no system of auditing. One had to repeatedly hammer it down it was an auditor who became the thief.

With the report filed with the Police I did not find any reason to remain at Akola. I commandeered a jeep and came away to Nagpur to catch the evening flight for Bombay. The fraud, instead becoming rich rotted in prison for a few years.

EMS Speedpost

Just before the EMS speed post system was to be introduced in Bombay in 1986 the PMG, CP Thomas, left on an Universal Postal Union assignment in Africa. Although I was always available in the office I was never associated in the meetings that were being held on regular basis in the chamber of the PMG. I was told that Ahmedabad PMG would come and hold double charge in the short-term vacancy.

Ultimately nobody was appointed in Thomas’s place and I was asked to look after the charge. Naturally, the responsibility to successfully introduce the new premium service of the Department at Bombay, the commercial capital of the country, also devolved on me. The only problem was I was totally blank about the new system as no papers on the subject were ever sent to me.

I read up all the material that had come and allotted work to those who I knew could deliver. They kept training the operatives and testing them till they had acquired the required expertise. Three days before the due date for launch of the service they came to me to tell me everything was fine. I would have none of it, I wanted them to have a dry run to check whether the timings provided for the runs between various points was adequate. The dry run did indicate the need for some reorientation of the running time of the vehicle.

I made an officer to travel in the vehicle on the day the system was introduced. He travelled in the vehicle through every point the vehicle touched and up to the airport mail office where everything that was collected was handed over for dispatch. He came back and reported everything worked like clockwork and they hit the airport to deliver the outgoing items on time.

While my goodwill earned at Nagpur carried the day as the officers who were specially deputed for the purpose were largely from there the senior officer who had come from the Directorate to supervise in the absence of the PMG, initially not very friendly, glowed with happiness, though did not have much to do.

*image from internet

Bhopal Notes :: 83 :: Catchments and intrusion in the Lake

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A recent report said that in order to save the Upper Lake and Kolans River that feeds it 240 hectares of land is going to be brought under farming where fruits, flowers and spices will be grown. The report also said that more than 51000 fruiting plants will also be planted. According to the news fed by the government sources so far more than 15 ponds have been built and three check-dams are also ready. As many as 16 recharge shafts have been built to induce the rain water to go underground and recharge the sub-soil water.

This was a positive news item that has come out after a long, long time. That the catchments of the Upper Lake held the attention of the government  is a welcome sign. So far the government had given its best of frigid shoulders to the Lake and its catchments. That it has woken up to the need of conserving the catchments, the river that feeds the Lake and several drains that contribute in replenishing the waters of the Lake is a matters that warrants celebration by the people. It is seldom that such people-oriented decisions are taken, more so in respect of their water security.

All that is well and good! But, I can see from the window of my flat that construction in the catchments is going apace, especially in the complex of sporting facilities. At least two or three storied buildings are being constructed. One does not know whether these are regular constructions or are illegal. The Administration might like to satisfy itself that environmental norms connected with Wetland Rules are not being breached.

While the government’s pre—occupation with the catchments of the Lake are commendable one would be happy if it pays a little more attention towards improvement in the quality of its waters. Off and on reports appear in the newspapers that raw sewage flows into the Lake without any let or hindrance. In fact numerous nallas carrying sewage continue to flow into the Lake. For the last 25 years this reporter has kept a watch on this matter but it seems the government is yet to come up with a solution for the problem. Is it such an intractable problem? One feels it is nothing but sheer apathy of the powers that be.

Residents of Khanugaon, a locality that projects on to the Lake, have been flexing their muscles for some time. Apparently they want a piece of the Lake. A few years ago a wall was erected which assumed such importance that even the former chief minister went and had look at it. He issued orders for its demolition but failed to follow them in writing. The municipality has latched on to this shortcoming and did not demolish the wall. Obviously, there is some biggy behind it all as otherwise orders written or otherwise of the chief minister would be promptly complied with. A recent report indicated Arif Aqeel’s interest in Khanugaon.

Now one finds a newly built jetty protruding out as a tongue from one of the waterfront areas of Khanugaon. A light coloured boat regularly makes trips from and to the Boat Club. I find several sailors using the jetty in the morning to launch themselves into the water. None would really oppose such sporting activities but now only a jetty has been built, in course of time a boat club too will be built. In fact, there was a demand for a boat club by Khanugaon residents. So far it has remained elusive but it may not remain so for long. At least, I do not know whether necessary permissions/approvals have been taken to build and use a jetty in this eco-sensitive body of water. Public spirited people/organization might like to delve deeper into the matter,

Memories of a ordinary bureaucrat :: 37 :: Bombay (Part IV) – Mumbai High

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On another day Sukumar came home and asked whether we would be willing to take a trip to one of the drilling platforms of Bombay High. My first reaction was who would allow us on a drilling platform and then one had to take a ride in a helicopter. Logistics were plainly against us but Sukumar with his never-say-die-attitude would have none of it. He brusquely told me to leave all that to him.

True enough he was able to swing it as he rang up to say one morning we would be leaving for the Juhu airfield around 11. Juhu was the place from where Pawanhans helicopters used to ferry men and material to the ONGC drilling platforms. In 1987, for it was that year when we took the ride in a Pawanhans helicopter, the reputation of the outfit was yet to be sullied. In later years there was a series of crashes, especially in the North-east region, one of the victims being a chief minister.

We drove down to Juhu and completed some formalities including signing away some disclaimers. The flying machine took off around 11.30 AM and within no time we were flying over the Arabian Sea. As the copter was flying at not very high altitude one could see massive fishes, presumably tunas, swimming in formation.  About an hour  and a half later we arrived at the top of the platform the name of which eludes me. The helicopter turned around and aligned itself with the markers to touch down. We were whisked down in lifts to the lower level.

In the hall we were shown in people were seen working with monitors in front. There were about a couple of dozen men. We were told that they work for 15 days and they are taken back to Juhu from where they head home. Some of them belonged to Bihar and they would catch a train for home the booking for which they would have done on arrival back from home. To go home and come back they would lose two days in travelling and that would give them 13 days of comfort at home.

At the platform they seemed to be quite happy. The accommodation though was cramped yet it was comfortable. The food was good as we shared their lunch. All in all they seemed to be a happy bunch of men. One, of course, could not get rid of the feeling of isolation, situated in mid ocean as they were in a confined space. The ONGC does take care to provide for their every need. They were all pleasantly happy we did not come across a worker who was grumpy.

As we collected on the helipad for the ride back the platform in-charge went close to my wife to tell her that she had become only the second woman to have stepped on to it after Indira Gandhi. While on our back I couldn’t help thinking that more people should be exposed to the way the men function on the platform. I felt a greater awareness about the conditions in which they work would be of help.

*Photo from internet

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 36 :: Bombay (Part IV) Trip in a yacht

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In the yacht

At Bombay I met up with a batch-mate who was from the Customs and Excise Service. He was working as Collector Customs, Bombay. Sukumar Mukhopadhyay, that was his name, was a very sincere worker and a very good friend. I recall two very interesting trips out of Bombay with him. One was a trip to Uran in the yacht of a Customs officer.

The Customs officer, Gulshan Rai, had a yacht that was, if I am not mistaken, partly financed by the government. It was named Jaycus II after the Collector Customs who had rendered assistance in not only acquisition of the vessel but also in organizing a round the world solo trip for Gulshan in it. Built of fiberglass, it was a small yacht with a cabin and wherewithal to sustain one on a long trip. Gulshan was an interesting person, having travelled the world as he had done.

His yacht was anchored at the Gateway of India where he took in his supplies and we boarded the vessel. Slowly he meandered his way out of the crowd of boats of various kinds and once he was out of the traffic he headed for Uran. Uran in 1980s was just an outcrop of mainland with only a petroleum company having its storage facilities and a few villages. However, later it has seen some developmental activities. It took us around two hours to get to Uran where we had some beer and lunch.

Around 4.00 in the afternoon we commenced our “voyage” back home. Up to half way down it was all very calm and uneventful. Soon, however, the wind gathered strength and ominous dark clouds seemingly came out of nowhere in the Western sky. The wind progressively became more violent as the sky darkened and the sea became turbulent. The yacht appeared small and fragile in the rough weather with waves all of a sudden seemed far too violently buffetting the yacht. Gulshan would keep a continuous chatter keeping everyone’s morale up. As we came near the Gateway of India the waters became more turbulent as they would rush towards land, hit the wall and come back with renewed vigour. Inside the cabin we could not sit down and had to use all our strength to steady ourselves on our legs. We could see the Taj Hotel and Tower go bobbing up and down through the glass windows as the boat went up and down with the waves.

At last, after interminable minutes, we hit terra firma. We were home – with no harm done to any of us. Apart from the scary end it was a very interesting outing.

Funny ways of BSNL

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Two days ago internet eluded us for the entire day. One did not lodge a complaint under the impression that it was a temporary disruption. But it continued much beyond the working hours when I decided to lodge a complaint. However to get the number of complaints booking proved to be as difficult. One has to feed in the telephone number and the STD code. When I fed the four-digit STD code it would inexplicably expand to eight digits and the operator was not able to register the complaint. I gave it up as a bad job.

I tried once again around six in the evening. This time without my feeding the number for the customer care executive the system on its own landed me up with the executive. She took down everything and asked me to hold giving me a false sense of relief. I thought I was through this time; but no, she came back on the line saying she was unable to get through as the server was working at very low speed and she was not able to have the complaint registered.

This was an entirely new phenomenon. The staff manning the complaint redressal system themselves had a complaint about the speed of the server. On my query whether she was not located at Bhopal she said no, she was in Rajasthan. This is the second time I was told that the complaints call centres of MP Telecom are located not in MP but in Rajasthan. The justification for farming out this important system of redressal of grievances that are not small in number to a place not within the Circle is what beats me.

But it is BSNL that does these extraordinary things. One hears that it is going to wind up soon. One wishes it Godspeed.

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 35 :: Mumbai (part II)- Matheran

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A hundred odd kilometers from Bombay, Matheran is a small hill station on the Western Ghats at an elevation of around 3000ft. It is the only automobile-free hill station in Asia. When we went up the steep slope up to Matheran I had to park my car at a designated lot about a kilometer away. We had to walk the distance over kuchcha roads to get to our guest house.

 It was high season for the town and the small township was bustling with visitors. The narrow gauge line which climbs the steep Western Ghats from Neral Jn. steams right into the town to disgorge its passengers. The Light Railway is a little more than 100 years old and yet it missed being selected as a world heritage entity. Perhaps, the want of proper maintenance and irregular runs were the reasons. Nonetheless, the Railways are trying again to get the tag.

As the place is declared as an eco-sensitive zone private automobiles are banned in the town. One has either to walk it or use a horse or even a hand-pulled rickshaw.

About 35 look-out points can keep visitors engaged. Some of them are really breathtakingly beautiful. Walking up to them in the bracing cool climate of the place can be invigorating.

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 34 :: Mumbai (Part I)

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So I landed up in Bombay - from one metropolis to another; from the political capital to the financial capital. In Delhi I was in a General Pool house that was below my entitlement and at Bombay, too, I had to move into a below-entitlement house that was, however, not of General Pool. It was a departmental house. The predecessors, in their wisdom, never thought of getting into the General Pool. Somehow, they seem to have been happy in departmental houses. In one way it was better. I recall having visited the house of a friend that was in terrible condition with balconies ready to fall off. Compared to them our houses were better maintained. Besides, having a departmental maintenance outfit has its own advantages.

With the new breed of packers and movers it was not difficult to move lock, stock and barrel from one place to another. They had taken the sting out of transfers. Besides, the new aircraft were capable to fly cars at tariffs that were only marginally higher than what was admissible if transported by an EVK railway wagon. I flew my Maruti 800 that was only a few months old in July 1984 by an Airbus and it took only minutes to have it delivered by Indian Airlines at Bombay. Within the matter of a week my wife and I were more or less settled in our new place of posting.

My office was in Bombay GPO building which is a heritage structure in the Fort area which has numerous structures classified as such. Bombay GPO is now more than 100 years old and is situated next to the World Heritage Site of Victoria Terminus, now renamed as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The building is of Indo-Saracenic kind patterned after the Gol Gumbad of Bijapur. It is a building of massive proportions with a circular central hall under its massive dome.

I was appointed as Additional Postmaster General in the Senior Administrative Grade Level II. The Postmaster General was in Level I. He was a Christian from Kerala and was a very amiable and humorous person. There was, however, a darker side of him. He used to make money by hiring huge structures for operative offices. While he took care of the postal operations of the entire city the rest of the state as well as the tiny state of Goa were left for me.

As I had earlier been Regional Director at Nagpur I had seen most of the eastern parts of the state. What I had not seen were parts of Marathwada, the Western Maharashtra and Konkan regions. Among the three Konkan region was considered very charming, offering best of nature – green hills, white and yellow sandy beaches and the blue waters of the Arabian Sea lapping on the shores. One had to take to the coastal highway – a badly maintained road with king-sized potholes. The Konkan Railway was still a few years away in the future.

 I made forays into Konkan starting off with Alibagh. The place had found favour with the rich and influential for building farm houses. It seemed to have been another way of concealing illegitimate income. Curiously I came across a huge property of Sardar Angrey, a feudal of Gwalior – a sworn enemy of the Scindias. I met him later in Delhi at a friend’s place. He used to own a Rolls Royce which he sold rather cheap being unaware of the price of a vintage Rolls. He apparently had no end of regrets about the loss.

In the next trip to Konkan I covered Chiplun, a very attractive little town, a taluka town and a trading centre to boot for the King of Mangoes – alphonsos. Its hills were green and a small stream meandered its way down towards the Arabian Sea.

Around 100 kilometres from Chiplun was the famous beach of Ganpatipule. We had booked a room in the guest house and spent a very pleasant 24 hours there. The beach was clean as we saw later in Vengurla. No sand crabs or spiders to bother one. This is true of most of the beaches in Konkan.

As I was close to Ratnagiri I took a shot at it. It is a beautiful place with green hills, small streams, creeks and clean beaches. The added attraction is the Alphonso mango and Kokum, a fruit that is specialty of the region and its cuisine. Besides, there is the Vijaydurg fort.  The mountain fastnesses of Konkan and Western Maharashtra are famous not only for their architecture but also for the exploits of Chhatrapati Shivaji and his cohorts. The environment of Ratnagiri ispresently under threat as a nuclear power station with French collaboration has been planned at Jaitapur proximate to it.

On another occasion I went further south of Ratnagiri – to Vengurla, a place which seemed to have terrific tourism potential but had remained unexploited. Its clean and seemingly anti-septic beaches are like an arc similar to Marine Drive in Bombay with a rest house on a hilltop at one end. Vengurla grows cashews and a fruit much like custard apple locally called Ramphal. One understands that the state government is now poised to market Vengurla as a tourist destination.

Savantwadi was a name I was familiar with. Some of my Maratha friends belonged to it or probably would talk about it. It was much like Goa – small, narrow roads, small markets with people trading with gusto. Savantwadi was south of Malvan that had sylvan beaches that stretch out ten long miles from one end to another. Malvani food has been well accepted by people from other regions.

As I did not wish to take to the coastal road again I went up the Western Ghats from Savantwadi to come across a natty little hill station by the name Amboli. It had a lovely rest house to compel us to spend the night. During the night it was cool and comfortable. Next morning we climbed down to Belgaum and proceeded to Kolhapur, on to Sangli, Satara and Pune. Thanks to my Maruti I made it in good time.

Our Life, Our Times :: 49 :: Dipping standard of political discourse

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That politicians are mostly despicable perhaps need not be emphasized. They are aggressive and vicious where their interests are concerned. They would, however, maintain decorum withinthe four walls of an assembly. But even that is slowly disappearing. Outside when making political speeches they just let themselves go at each other. One can, therefore, briefly describe them as bounders of unspeakable conduct.

Recently, there was a ruckus over a statement made by Rahul Gandhi about the Prime Minister, NarendraModi. Speaking at a rally for elections to Delhi Legislative Assembly he is reported to have said while talking on the issue of unemployment that young people are going to beat up the Prime Minister after six months with sticks and he would not be able to come out of his house. He said this in most disrespectful language. In Hindi there are two ways of communicating – one, for communicating with or about a senior or elderly person, the other for regular intercourse with friends and family which is or can be shorn of usage of respectful words. Rahul used the latter kind of language which immediately hurt the sensibilities of sensitive people. The hatred for the Prime Minister that he has nursed all these years within came out in a torrent.

No wonder there was a ruckus in the Parliament the next day. Nobody was convinced by the arguments of the Congressmen and their supporters who did not exactly justify this kind of uncivil language as there was nothing to justify since everything was so apparent. They almost came to blows. They tried to circumvent and even evade the issue. Instead they raked up other issues. They did not allow the Health Minister to reply to a question raised by Rahul as the commotion created by both sides led to adjournment.

This is not the first time that he has played this kind of a game with the Prime Minister. Once in the Parliament a few months ago he suddenly got up from his chair, walked towards the Treasury Benches and went and hugged the Prime Minister without any apparent rhyme or reason. The PM was taken by surprise and recovering from the shock he stood up and gave him a proper hug. Rahul Gandhi walked back to his seat and looked at his colleagues like JyotiradityaScindia and others only to give them a wink. It was a very puerile joke and one did not expect it from his lineage. 

His is the fourth generation of Nehru family in Indian politics but never has such disrespect to other members of Parliament or the members of parties in opposition been shown in the past by any of his predecessors in the family. Jawaharlal Nehru was respected by all – whether in the government or in the opposition. During Chinese debacle he came under tremendous pressure and even offered to resign. The people in the Congress, however, told him very politely that the Party would decide when it was time for him to go but at that point of time it was the Defense Minister Krishna Menon who had to go. Never an impolite word was uttered by anybody in the government or the Opposition. But those times were different when people, especially politicians, perhaps were more gentle and polite - more civilized.

Rahul has had this immaturity displayed every time and almost everywhere. The party that he belongs to somehow has generated among its members such an intense hatred for the party in power that it comes out in their words and deeds every time. Not that the party in power is any less belligerent. It is needless to say that there is no love lost between the two parties and their constituents. Now that BJP is in power there is a sneaking feeling among the Congressmen that they – the BJP - are the usurpers. Having ruled for a few decades the Congress thinks that it has a rightful claim to India’s throne. Apparently, the dynasty that led the Congress also feels so. Hence, all the surviving members of the family who have been inducted in the Party are hostile to the ruling party and the PM and are out indulging in nit picking.

The PM Modi is actually the object of their ire and this is not of recent origin. The anger and hatred for him dates back to the days when Modi was heading the Gujarat government. There while campaigning during a Gujarat Assembly Election Mrs. Sonia Gandhi had described Modi as “Mautkasaudagar”, i,e, a merchant of death. The secular Congress tried its best to nail Modi for the deaths during the Gujarat riots but failed for lack of evidence. Modi was cleared of all charges even by the Supreme Court. But the ire and hatred lingered on. Perhaps those were magnified manifold in 2014 when Modi and BJP romped home at the General Elections. Unfortunately for them, Modi was returned to power with a thumping win in 2019. Congress was relegated so far back that on both the occasion it failed to qualify for being considered as the main opposition for nomination of its leader to the position of the Leader of the Opposition.No wonder unpleasant relations between the two continue and frequent undesirable barbs are thrown at each other.

In the recent Delhi State elections though BJP has been beaten hands down by the AamAdmi Party but the Congress has been relegated to irrelevance having been unable to win a single seat. Clearly Rahul Gandhi’s rants against the AAP and the BJP proved to be of no avail to the Congress. Looks like, the Congress is heading for self—destruction by persisting to choose its head from the Gandhi family.

Mercifully, Rahul Gandhi has openly told the people that he would not like to don the mantle of the president of Indian National Congress. He is reported to have repeated this three times. Hopefully, he means it and the Party will go looking for a new face not from the dynasty but from “the open market” so to say. The Grand Old Party has to realize that the Gandhi dynasty is progressively becoming too huge a weight for it so much so that because of it “power” is receding away from it. Even the induction latelyof Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has not made any tangible difference to its performance at the hustings.

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat ::33 :: Delhi (Part II)

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Dak Bhavan

After completion of the Advanced Professional Programme on Public Administration I reverted back to the Department but not to Nagpur from where I was deputed. I was for the first time in my career appointed in the P&T Board. It was still a composite board of Posts & Telegraphs – “Telecom” was yet to get into the lexicon of the Department. The Secretary used to be from the ICS/IAS until the Departments split up into two – the Department of Telecom (DoT) and India Post. On bifurcation in 1985 the two independent departments got their secretaries from amongst officers of their respective organized services.

I was still in the Junior Administrative Grade and hence was posted in the rank of Director in charge of Materials Management & Printing. The work was largely uninteresting but I had to be careful to see that I did not become a victim of foul play by others. The Materials Management outfit also handled procurement though most of the items were procured through the Directorate General of Supplies & Disposals (DGS&D). There was, therefore, very little chance of getting involved in a corruption case contrived by others.

And yet a case appeared to have occurred where a junior official was involved in indiscriminate local, i.e. not through DGS&D, procurement of paper. My boss, Deputy Director General (DDG), had once asked meto have a particular file sent to him as the Member in-charge of the Board wanted to see it. I passed down the instructions but a few days later the DDG again called me up for the file. I was surprised that the file had not been sent. Hence this time I summoned it through my PA only to find sure signs of indiscriminate placement of orders. The file had never come to me. A senior clerk, much known for his clairvoyance in the entire office, was found responsible and was proceeded against. A very senior junior level officer close to retirement lost heavily in the amount of his pension. All for the crooked clairvoyant!

I had spent hardly a little more than a year in the post when one morning the Member rang me up to tell me that he had nominated me for a course on Postal Statistics to be run by the Universal Postal Union, the specialized agency of the UN for matters relating postal communications. The course was to be run in India for four weeks, in China for four weeks, in Japan for two weeks and in Thailand for two weeks. The course was to last for three months after which the participants, who were from different South Asian and South-East Asian countries, were to disperse to their respective countries.

I have written separately about the course and our visits to the three countries. The only thing that seems to me to be worth mentioning is that China then was not the economic and industrial giant that it is today. It was then in the process of opening up. Some hoardings of a few multinationals were visible on street corners. There were practically no privately owned cars on streets – only Russian-made or their Chinese copies were visible. We were, however, taken around in Toyota mini buses. Bicycles were much in use and in the evenings huge hordes of cyclists, like I had seen in Pune or even bigger than them, would invade the roads as theywent back home from their work places. Today China is perhaps the biggest market for cars, more so for luxury cars. Japan, it is needless to say, was much ahead with its two or three tiered flyovers, shinkansens (bullet trains) and multi-storied malls. Thailand, I might add, was doing much better than India. Its traffic of a million cars was highly disciplined. The city was still growing which I later witnessed during my couple of visits.

On return from the tour I submitted, as required by Government of India instructions, a rather lengthy report to the higher authorities but, sadly, it came back without any comments by the higher-ups, including the Secretary. Be that as it may, I was posted as Director Mechanisation temporarily as a lady officer had asked for the post I had vacated before going to join the course.The post dealt with mechanisation of various postal operations.

It so happened that a company that was in correspondence with the department quoted an extravagantly high price for the improved version of its registrex machines. Instead of negotiating with it I communicated with approval of the DDG the inability of the department to consider it. The representative of the company never came back to me. I had forgotten about it and had moved on to the post I was originally appointed. Then on an April day my DDG rang me up saying that I had not mentioned the case of purchase of registrex machines in my Annual Confidential Records form. I told him I had forgotten about it and, in any case, it was a smallmatter. He said he did not think so as because of my refusal to entertain the inflated price the government had saved thousands of rupees. He said, never mind, he would make a mention of it. People like him were rare and hard to come by. The DDG was none other than Shamsur Rahman Faruqi who is now a big name in Urdu literature and Urdu literary circles.

After about two and a half years in post I was promoted in 1984 to the Sr. Administrative Grade as Dy. Director General of Postal Life Insurance. For those who are unaware of this organization I might add that the system was introduced by the British Government in India for insuring the departmental employees to alleviate their pecuniary circumstances, especially after their retirement. It has become a mammoth organization today extending its tentacles to all departments of the government of India and its public sector undertakings, state government employees, nationalised banks, autonomous bodies of the Centre and so on. The Centenary celebrationswere held in 1984 during my stewardship of the organization.

Having completed four years in the P&T Board it was time for me to move to the field again. A senior officer of the Staff Branch came one morning to ask me where I would like to be posted – Srinagar or Lucknow. Having worked in Srinagar earlier I expressed my preference for Lucknow. They, however, posted me to Bombay (which was yet to become Mumbai). This is how the governments function – generally in an unpredictable manner.

(concluded)

*photo from internet

From my scrap book :: 17 :: Public clocks

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The Munich public clock

A feature in the Indian Express titled “Mumbai O’Clock” in its supplement called “eye” was published recently. The feature was, in fact, ona photo-journalist, ChirodeepChoudhury and his fascination for public clocks which he called ‘The City’s timekeepers”.

 The feature was accompanied by numerous photographs of public clocks of Mumbai. Choudhury went around the town, mostly on foot, to photograph them. Some of his photographs were first exhibited in a Kala Ghoda festival where, according to him, they became hugely popular. Later he exhibited 81 of his photographs of “Clocks of Bombay” in Max Mueller Bhavan in Mumbai.

His photographs are generally of public buildingsbuilt in an era when topping them with a clock was almost de rigueur. Placed prominently on the crowns of the buildings or their towersthey,apart from adding to the aesthetics of the town,would help people to check the time, particularly in days gone by when timepieces andwatches were scarce. There are few of those that are on Churches, mosques or temples. He found some on private buildings, too. One of these curiously had no numbers or digits, onlyDevnagri alphabets to indicate the hours. Obviously, to everyone these clocks served a purpose – that of checking the timeby stealing a glance at the clock while running to school or rushing to office or hurrying to keep an assignation.

The feature reminded me of my own fascination with public clocks. Living in a small town – Gwalior – in the backwaters of the country in a princely state the chime of the local College clock tower was a perennial presence for us. We had necessarily to get attached to it since my father used to be a professor teaching in the College. My childhood revolved round it. We, other siblings and I, would be taken to the College grounds for the evening outings and would be taken back home as the clock struck 5 in the evenings in winters and 6 in summers. My mother too used to schedule her household chores by its chimes during the day. The chimes would be audible in our house every hour of the day and much further away. They were so loud. The clock was installed as the building came up in 1891 to house the Victoria College.

I recall once our help who used to take me out somehow got hold of the man who used to wind the clock. Along with him he carried me in his lap up the three or four floors on spiral staircases of the clock tower. We had not gone up even half way up when the clock started to strike the hour of five. It was deafening in the confined spaces of the tower and hit my ear drums hard enough to unsettle me. The help hurried down the stairs as fast as he could but soon the chimes stopped. Since I had burst out crying he did not dare go up again. Audible practically all over the small town the chimes necessarily had to be loud and inside the clock tower they were ear-splitting and unbearable. That happened about 80 years ago.

My next brush with a clock tower was years later in 1970s when I was already in service and was working as Regional Director of Post Offices in Nagpur. I came up against a peculiar situation. Nagpur GPO was then about half a century old building and had a clock tower. It was not as tall as the Gwalior college tower or so I suppose. One morning as I was settling down to commence my work I was told the brass plates of the clock tower had been stolen during the preceding night. The brass plates were the ones on which the hammer would strike every hour. These were supposed to have been huge and couldn’t have been detached and carried to ground floor byonly a lone burglar. There must have been others who most probably were helped by conniving watchmen.We reported the matter to the local Police but they had not been able to trace the brass plates till the time I left Nagpur on another posting. This time, however, there was no help to carry me up the clock tower.

During my travels I came across many interesting public clocks in India. I came across a great variety in Mumbai and Kolkata. Kolkata, of course, had the iconic clock on the GPO building high up near its magnificent dome. The one which impressed memost in Mumbai is the Rajabai Clock Tower near Bombay University. It is more than 150 years old and is reputed to be architecturally one of the finest.

I was fortunate enough to see the Big Ben, the grand dad of all clock towers, from close quarters. Then travelling in Europe I happened to come across the famous clock tower at Marienplatz in Munich which is a must-see tourist destination for those who visit the city. It not only chimes the hours it also re-enacts stories from sixteenth century for amusement of crowds. One more interesting clock tower I happened to come across in Prague. It is a medieval clock tower which is astronomical. Located on the Old Town Hall it displays, inter alia, the movements of the sun and the moon. It is also a great tourist attraction and one will always find crowds gathered in front of it.

The Indian Express feature brought back long lost memories to me.It was such a pleasure to re-live those far-away days.

Memories of an ordinary Indian :: 32 :: Delhi - Indian Institute of Public Administration

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IIPA, New Delhi

The shift from Nagpur took me to the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA)in Delhi for a nine-month course in Public Administration. The course was called Advanced Professional Programme in Public Administration (APPPA). It was a prestigious programme run by a prestigious Institute.

Patterned on Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) IIPA runs management courses for public sector managers, government servants, foreign nominees and so on. Its core intent was defined as “de-colonialising of the mindset ofadministration and making it more people oriented”. As a sequel, its responsibility is to enhance the frontiers of knowledge in public policy and governance through applied research and education as well as training of administrators to serve the people of India. Enhancing leadership and managerial qualities on the one hand and developing service orientation on the other are the thrust areas of the Institute.

APPPA was a course developed for middle level management of Government of India and of certain neighbouring countries. Its main components were classroom lectures, a village study culminating with a dissertation and a tour of someneighbouring countries for familiarization with their patterns of administration and administrative practices.

We were around thirty participants in the course from different organized services of the government of India, two Bangladeshis and a Malaysian. Among the Indian participants there was one other Service mate senior to me and a few batch mates whom I met after a gap of almost twenty years. Though the course meant for middle level officers i.e. deputy secretaries level, there was one participant who used to be Additional Secretary level and another who was a Joint Secretary. There was even a chief engineer of the Central Public Works Department. I later came to know that the Course had degenerated into a ploy for those who wanted to remain in Delhi after completion of their tenure regardless of whether they fulfilled the criteria for being inducted for the Course or not. It seems, there used to be pushes, pulls and manipulations to have oneself included in the Course – quite a sordid affair. It is better not to think or speak about it.

I got introduced to the subject of Sociology during this course and I found it immensely interesting. I read up some books and among them was one of MN Srinivas who, I found, was very interesting. Other lectures were routine and not very enlightening as most of us who had qualified in Humanities were aware of them. I recall one very interesting lecture by the representative of Singapore Government who spoke about the differences with Malaysia because of which the port of Singapore became a City State. The separation proved to be for the better for Singapore as, todayfor its size, it is economically and industrially very strong.

For a village study I was a part of a batch of seven participants who were taken to Udaipur in Rajasthan and were given different subjects for studies in neighbouting villages. I was to study the Rural Indebtedness in a village. My probes pointed towards corruption among the revenue department officials and officials of banks located in the village or near about. The villagers found it too inconvenient to obtain loans from banks as at every step they had to shell out money to bribe either the revenue department officials for certifying the necessity for a loan or the officials of the banks for approving it. The banks were opened in rural areas to wean the villagers away from the usurious village money lenders. But despite the government’s efforts to kill the business of the village money lenders the villagers found him to be the best bet being a one-stop facility for obtaining loans. No clearances from the revenue officials were necessary for which the rural folk had to bribe the officials. Likewise, they did not have to bribe the bank officials to speedily disburse theloan. They did not mind the high interest rates of the money lenders. The rural branches of the banks, therefore, failed to live up to the purpose for which these were opened. The dissertation on the study fetched me, as they did for others for their respective dissertations, a degree of M.Phil recognized all over the country.

Towards the end of the Course we were taken on a familiarization tour of three neighbouring countries, viz. Sri Lanka, Malaysiaand Singapore. It was an interesting tour about which I have written separately. Here it would suffice if I pointed out the things which struck me to be useful or strange. For example Sri Lanka was not apparently keen on facilities of training in India or the expertise available. For training of their officials they would depute their officers to distant lands. For example, for acquiring expertise in rice cultivation they would send their officers to Japan when India next door seemingly had the necessary expertise in the shape of a Rice Research Institute. Similarly, I found many of their officers were deputed to UK for training on matters for which expertise was available in India. Either they did not have faith on Indian establishments or the local Indian mission did not sell the country’s wares, so to say, hard enough.

In Malaysia there were two pieces of interesting information that came our way. One was about monitoring of high value projects at the highest level in order to prevent time and cost overruns. The other was about road construction. We had found the roads of Malaysia excellent. The reason was that all the utilities that rendered their services through underground pipes and cables were told before a road is constructed that for next twenty years they would not be allowed to dig up the roads and hence they should do whatever was necessary within the given time frame. In our country we always find that roads are dug up soon after they are built by one utility or the other.

When we visited Singapore in 1981 Singapore was still considered a cheap market.Its prime minister did not like this tag. He wanted his country to be a market for high-end goods. Over the years he has been successful in having it done and the country now boasts of a market that vies with Dubai as one of the world’s best markets. Even when we visited Singapore it was for us something out of this world. We, of course, were from a poor pseudo—socialist country and had not seen many of the mechanical or electronic gadgets that were being sold openly in its malls. In our country in those days these were not allowed to enter or had very high rate of duty imposed on them. The visit to Singapore, in this  respect, was an eye-opener.

After nine months for the first time on completion of the training programme I was posted in the national headquarters in New Delhi which was till then known as the P&T Board. The next installment will be about that period of a little more than three years that I spent at this office.

(To be continued)

*Photo of IIPA is from internet