 |
| 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment