How to improve public service?

I have complained about the public service in India in my previous post. Now I want to propose some ideas and possible solutions to the problem. So here goes.

Understanding the problem is half the solution. Here are some questions for anyone who can make a difference in improving the interaction with public offices in India, if such individuals ever stumble upon this blog.

Goals
- Avoid/Reduce queuing
- Reduce turn around time for every customer to less than half hour in all public offices such as banks, electric/telephone utilities, train (reservation) stations, passport offices, etc.
- Help people who really need help.
- Handle elders, disabled, pregnant women, women with children as a priority.
- Empower people who can handle themselves.
- Behave courteously to all customers. Must have service with a smile. Indian public servants are notoriously uptight individuals.

Let's think in terms of some basic parameters to achieve these goals.

Understand Demand
Approximately how many people need to be serviced every day? If we can't estimate it based on the demographics, we should at least have a statistical number on the quantity. If that data doesn't exist yet, every regional office should start collecting that information. Count every single person who walks into the public office for service. It is important for every regional office to know the usual demand. Student interns such as NSS cadets can be used for such exercises.

Estimate the Cycle Time
The average time it takes for a customer to get in and out of the office. The goal is to reduce this time. Again, start recording the times. What is not measured cannot be improved.

Know the Capacity
Cycle time * number of work hours * number of office staff servicing the customers. This gives the maximum number of customers that can be serviced with the current staff level. If a single customer has to deal with multiple stations/staff to get the job done, individual station capacity should be estimated. Again, volunteers can help.

Know and control Utilisation
With a nominal 80% utilisation, how many customers can be served per day by the total number of staff in the office? This gives a more practical estimate of the capacity accounting for staff leave, late arrivals, lunch breaks, personal business time, etc.

Identify and eliminate Bottlenecks
Where do the incoming customers spend most of the time? Is it in getting the paper work filled up? Is it in deciding between the available choices? Is it in excessive internal handling time? Is it in the payment step? How can that be alleviated?

Conclusion
Once the above parameters are understood, I believe one of the common findings will be that our offices are generally under staffed. If most customers in the region (urban?) are educated and can handle themselves, automate the processes to delegate work to the customers. If most customers need a lot of help, invite volunteers, educated retirees like school teachers to help out the people in need. I am sure a lot of such people will come forward to help others. I see an opportunity for non-profit outfits to organize such efforts. Basically get help from the elements of the society to make life better for everyone.

Introduce some basic periodic training for the staff. They work to serve the people. Public servants should drop the feudal attitude. One effective way is to tie the customer feedback to the staff incentives and perks program. Institute such programs to encourage staff to change their behavior towards the public. Once people see benefit in checking their attitude, they will change quickly. The incentive need not be in terms of money. Invite sponsors from local businesses for discount coupons, cinema tickets, free meals, etc. It serves as an advertisement vehicle for local businesses and an enormous moral boost for the employees to win such awards by serving people with a smile.

So without requiring any increase in funding or staff level, things can be improved dramatically. Public offices should come forth to work closely with the NGOs to benefit from them and serve people better.

Of course, the first step is to recognize that wasting time unproductively waiting for mundane services is a problem. We should all expect, rather demand, better service from the public servants who are paid for by the tax payers. Refusing to understand that there is problem, asking for tolerance of inefficiencies, making excuses for the status quo, coloring the intentions of the messenger are only detrimental to improving the situation.