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.

The insensitivity of the Indian bureaucracy

Yesterday, my mother had to go to the local passport office to have her passport renewed. She has had her current passport for 10 years and now needs a new passport to travel. I looked up the web site of the passport office, entered all her data to register for the visit and printed out application neatly. The prep went for a week to collect the supporting documents such as the voter's card, photos, copies of old passport, etc. My wife and kids accompanied her when the day came a little ahead of the appointment time at 9:30 AM.

There was a long line of people, a closed door with a rogue gate keeper peeking out to open the door for the appointment holders. This guy has no training whatsoever. He strictly insisted that only the applicant can go in. My wife tried to explain that my mom needs help with the application process and cannot handle it herself, only to fall in deaf ears. Once inside, my mother was made to wait in a queue, promptly ambushed by the impatient staff at the passport office and sent out after a couple of hours. Their reason was that she needed to show in the application the US address where she stayed a few months in the last year. Not only that they want address proof of that US address! How insane is that? My mom had no clue of what they were asking. There was no explanation or any courteous to a senior citizen. She had to leave the office in anguish after two hours of waiting in the madness of the passport office. My wife meanwhile argues with the gate keeper and finally makes her way in when mom was fed up and coming out. My wife goes in and finds out what they want. But because we filed the application online, there is no way to edit the application! There are "paid volunteers" inside the passport office sitting with a bunch of computers to register the application online right there. However, they cannot edit an existing application, because the website does not support it. So this will be a completely new registration. All that I did for a week is now thrown out and the guy takes the money to register a new application. Of course, there is a queue at every stage and long waiting in grueling hot sun. Most people don't even know that there is a wait counter where you have to take a ticket for your turn. People stand in the queue only to find out that they don't have a ticket when they are in the counter and promptly sent to the back of the line.

Meanwhile my kids are outside with the auto guy in the heat of the mid day. During the wait, my mom comes out and after another fight with the gate keeper gets the kids inside. You can see how duty bound the gate keeper is in his work not allowing a 6 yr old and a 3 yr old inside the passport office when their mom and grandma are inside. Anyway the ordeal comes to climax when they approach the counter to "file" the application, only to be told that their registration takes an hour to update before they can pay the fee. The time is now 1:30 PM; kids go bonkers in the heat and the hunger. Meanwhile a lot more applicants are kicked out the same way as my mom was without proper explanation, guidance or courtesy. Those who can afford go through the "volunteers" to get the job done. Others are clueless and wander talking to anyone who can point them in a direction. It is complete chaos. My wife decides at this time there is no point in waiting for the 'system to update' and decides to leave home. They all come home, have late lunch, get the kids to nap and go back around 3:00 PM. Apparently it was much better at that time after most of those poor applicants were rejected and sent home to continue with their ordeal for another day. My mom was able to pay the fee and get out of their. Will the passport come in the next month? Hope so. There is "police verification" even for renewals. So that could be interesting.

Genius Vs Team

No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable. It is the test of an organization to make ordinary human beings perform better than they seem capable of, to bring out whatever strength there is in its members, and to use each man's strength to help all the others perform. The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.
- Peter Drucker

Globalization Vs. Socialism - Part2

True, the first few instances of a state attempting to implement socialism ended up in disasters. Yeah I am talking about the erstwhile U.S.S.R and the "Rather Something republic of China". They both set off to implement the "dictatorship of the proletariat" but were only partially successful - they could only implement upto the "dictatorship" part! But elsewhere when implemented within the confines of a democratic system, with the state continuously tweaking it's socialist principles based on realities of the day, it did pay off. In India, the state owned railways system, subsidized for the poor, ran at loss for several decades, the loss compensated by tax money from people who could pay taxes. In general state owned public transportation system helped poor Indians a lot (by taxing rich Indians). Another good example would be the ban on exports of essential commodities, that the GOI enforces once in a while. This is about Govt. protecting poor people from unfair market dynamics. When the supply of essential commodities doesn't meet the combined demands of internal/external markets, there will be a tendency among suppliers to court external markets. This is when external markets are willing to pay a premium to get those commodities while poor locals can't compete with them. After all the essential commodities like rice and lentil weren't produced just by man-hours put in by farmers. They also used up some of nation's resources such as water and soil, all of which belong to the citizens. So it makes sense to give poor Indians the first chance to buy these essential commodities.

But imagine a hypothetical scenario where farmers in Vietnam are able to produce better qualitily rice and wheat, in higher quantities and export it to India at a price cheaper than the local suppliers can give at. If GOI moves to block this import then the local buyers are going to suffer due to higher prices. Furthermore the skills of local farmers won't grow, thanks to the absence of competition. This is certainly not good. A country should allow it's people to compete with other people in skills though it protects it's people from unfair trade conditions. In other words a country should distinguish between a fair compertition (of skills) and an unfair competition (of prices) while applying socialism. I am going to save the rest of my babble for Part3.

Funny bit

Truth is seldom kind

Jaswant’s incomplete truth

...The British had decided on Partition to serve their own strategic ends. On 29 March, 1945, after Viceroy Lord Wavell met Prime Minister Churchill in London he recorded: “He (Churchill) seems to favour partition of India into Pakistan, Hindustan and Princestan.” ...

...Jinnah’s key decisions between 1940 and 1946, including the demand for Pakistan in 1940, were taken after getting the nod from Churchill or Lord Linlithgow and Wavell, both Churchill’s admirers...

...Pandit Nehru was...thoroughly programmed by the British since his school days. His proximity to Lord Mountbatten has been recorded by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and historian Shashi Joshi among others...

Excerpts from the editorial of The Statesman.

Power of thought!

Circle of no life!

Do you have adversaries?

To govern is to choose,
To choose is to offend
To offend is to make adversaries.

Rethinking computing technology

Artificial brain in 10 years?

Cult Math

Here is an interesting math that I came across recently on one of the blogs. There are many religious, "scientific" gurus, yogics and cult leaders mostly from India and some from other parts of the world. The basic instrument they all use to spread and capture their audience is the same. The following algebra explains that.

If X = Those who have not tried the cult,
And Y = Those who have tried cult and BUY it,
And Z = Those who have tried cult and DON'T BUY it,
And Q = (Y+Z)*#yrs practiced = Those who tried the cult, bought it, practiced it for years, became dis-illusioned and dispensed of it....

According to those in the Y group
Y > X ( cult-ies are better than X and must find and SAVE them)
Y > Z ( cult-ies are better and more enlightened than Z)
Y > Q ( cult-ies that stay the course and not question the cult are more advanced than ex-cult-ies)

Therefore:
Y = Know it all - pseudo-enlightened
X = Ignorant
Z = Ego with wall around them
Q = X*Z (Ego times ignorance)

Y will always win the argument, will win the most toys and achieve the highest bliss. Everyone else is X, Z or Q.

And that is the definition of being brain washed!

Anything to Declare?

Yeah, don't go to England!!* Just kidding. It was one of the most memorable trips. Here is what I did in UK.

London:
I spent the first two days in London. As far as the city is concerned it is as good as Chennai and in some aspects Chennai looks better - I am not joking. If you take the tower bridge out of London, there is nothing much to tell you it is London. Buckingham palace was disappointingly plain. I wasn't expecting a mysore palace but still... Then there is the Tower of London which has some nice history attached to it. But beyond this facade there are two good museums - the British museum, which is the best museum I have ever seen and the maritime museum in Greenwich (pronounced Grenitch for some reason). British museum is simply a display of loots from Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, India and China during the "glorious past" of Britain. They have literally hundreds of relics and artifacts from the pyramids of Egypt and sometimes even entire temples brought piecemeal from Greece. For us it is one place where you can see a lot of archealogical stuff from all known civilizations. The maritime museum explores the history of human exploration of far away places in high seas. If you are interested in history these are the places to see.

Bath:
The moment you are out of London though, you are in a completely different place. The English countryside deserves to be praised. Miles after miles of rolling meadows and farmlands make for a splendid drive. I think 90% of UKs population lives in London! - Except for the occasional fences there is little evidence that people live in these places. Bath is an ancient city that still contains remains of Britain's Roman past. They call it Bath because that is where Roman's took bath. In the rest of the places they simply used perfumes!..... I am just joking. Bath is called so because it has natural hot springs. The pagan romans made a pond out of it and constructed a temple next to it for the Goddess "Minerva", who is the healing God. The idea was that if you took bath in that pond your disease will go away. After Romans turned to christianity they constructed churches, remains of which still exist. Thus it is a 2000 year old city which contains both churches and pagan temples. Feels good to just walk around and absorb the history. I vowed to come back and spend a week there. No wonder "Lonely planet" asserts that if there is only one city you would see in UK, it should be Bath. So go there.

Blenheim palace:

This is the birthplace of Winston Churchill, the great and only leader from UK! His great great grand daddy, John Churchill was awarded by the Queen this 300 acre odd place along with 240,000 pounds as a generous gift for defeating the French in one of those perpetual battles between them. People's tax money well spent. Someone said the residents today live on the earnings that visitor's offer to see the place. Apparently Indians do not work for free any more.

Warwick Castle:

One of Britain's better maintained castles. Climb 500 narrow steps to the top of one of the towers and you can see a staggering view of the rest of the castle and the landscape of Warwickshire. Or you could simply look at the photograph here. I relished on the strategy with which the castle was built. Every tower, every room had a certain functionality. It would take an entirely different post to discuss about them all. But I would like to mention something I heard from the guide about laying siege to a castle. Apparently the besiegers would use big sling shots to throw chemicals that would create eye irritating fumes and dead animals/ human refuse to spread disease among other things in an attempt to obtain a surrender without have to break through the mighty walls of the castle. Hmm...so chemical and biological warfare aren't new after all.

Chatsworth house:
And then an 'out of this world', beautiful stately house - this time it belongs to the Duck of Derbyshire....or rather the Duke of Derbyshire (if you have seen Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven'). A walk along the brook will make anyone want to write a poem. It would be very hard to describe the beauty of this place. So, I am simply posting a picture of it.

Edinburgh, Scotland:

Edinburgh was the most historic looking city in UK that I visited. Edinburgh castle was the best. Built on top of a hill it offers a view of the north sea along with the entire city of Edinburgh. This castle played a main part in the Scottish battle of independence. If any one of you remember Robert, the Bruce (No one can beat me seven times in a row), one of the greatest Scottish generals, he wrestled this castle back from the English.

Lake District:

This is the most beautiful national park I have ever seen. It has a lot of hills of different shades of green with large lakes littered among them. I was going to spend only one day there and move on to Cambridge. But the moment I saw it on the first light of the day (I reached there when it was dark as hell), I said, "Screw Cambridge". It was that beautiful. You could easily spend a week there. And I will, sometime in the future. It is a perfect place for honeymooners for sure.

Roads:

Yep, the roads of UK need a special mentioning. I wont be doing them Justice if I simply said they were narrow. If you drove a small car like VW Golf or Maruti 800, you would feel like you were driving a lorry. You could smell the paint of the car that crosses you on the opposite direction. As for the shoulder there is none whatsoever. Right were the side of the road ends they have stacked sharp shapeless black stones to remind you were the road ends! If you go to your left a little more than you should, you will not only puncture your tires, but you will also get a nice design on the otherwise plain looking side of your car. So then this is the British version of a rumble strip. If this isn't enough, there is another dimension to these roads. The British haven't heard of a simple geometrical instrument called "the ruler". Roads, even in desolate open lands, looked like they had a strand of spaghetti for inspiration. In US, car manuals say that after a certain thousand miles you have to change the tires or the brakes or the timing belt. I was going through my car manual to see if there was any mentioning of changing the steering wheel! There wasn't, but there should have been. Remember the ridiculous car driving scenes from old movies where the driver is constantly turning the steering either way? That is exactly how you will drive on a UK road.

P.S. That dialog is from "Snatch". You can't miss that movie.

Term limit - Honduras, India

Honduras is going through rough times. The president tried to extend the term limit of his presidency indefinitely through a referendum and a got into trouble with the constitutional entities such as Congress and the Supreme court. Military stepped in, on directions from the Supreme court, and removed the elected President and handed over power to Congress. The validity of the action is questioned by many States including the US. The events are still unfolding at this time.

It raises an interesting question for India. There are no term limits for the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister. We have a 80+ year old man on the wheel chair running a state for the 5th time. Although our Presidents have two term limit, we don't have term limits for our PMs and CMs.

In US, the first president George Washington set a precedence by stepping down after two terms. That was followed for a long time until FDR stayed in power for 4 times during WWII. The US constitution was amended in 1951 that set the term limit to two times for a President.

Is it time to set such limit for elected officials in India? I understand we need the wisdom of the experienced to govern. But should they be at the helm of the demanding executive branch or serve as consultants to the young and able as needed?

Here is an interesting discussion thread on the topic.

Using Other People's Money (OPM)

This is the continuation of the "borrowing money" blog. You may want to review it first to get the flow.

When you want to maximize your return on investments, the math shows that one way to do is to maximize your leverage. i.e. In the previous example, if you invest 25% of your dough ($25) and borrow 75% to invest($75), you return on investment ($12.5) is at least 50%. Very attractive, indeed.

In theory, if you borrow 100% and make a wise investment, your return on investment is infinite! You are just taking advantage of the difference in low fixed interest rate on your loan and potentially high return gained from your investment choice.

It can't be that easy, right? Well it isn't. It is a slippery slope math that can trip anyone. When you over leverage(borrow), your commitment to your lender is higher and fixed, irrespective of the payback from your investment. So anytime you don't get your expected $20 back from the $100 investment, you are in trouble. When the lenders don't get their fixed payments, the result is the insolvency or the bankruptcy of the borrower. That is, the lender has the right to replace the owner and take over the investment and perhaps resell or liquidate it. A terrible result for investors because all their investment is totally lost in that situation.

So not borrowing at all neither gives you good returns on your savings (and investments) nor does it increase economic activity of the country. On the other hand, borrowing too much can be disastrous. The trick is to maximize your savings and yet reduce your risk by not over leveraging.

The benefits of failure

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Please go full screen to see the video continuously.

The fate of "Market Fundamentalism" abroad

Every crisis comes to an end—and, bleak as things seem now, the current economic crisis too shall pass.
When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating...

...The American economy will eventually recover, and so, too, up to a point, will our standing abroad. America was for a long time the most admired country in the world, and we are still the richest. Like it or not, our actions are subject to minute examination. Our successes are emulated. But our failures are looked upon with scorn...

Fantastic article by Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz

Globalization Vs. Socialism - Part1

"Globalization" may be a recently coined term. But visionaries saw its arrival 50-60 years ago. Eisenhower, in a book written righ t after the end of WWII, wrote, " The democracies must learn that the world is now too small for the rigid concepts of national sovereignity that developed in a time when the nations were self-sufficient and self-dependent for their own well being and safety. None of them today can stand alone". About the same time, Jawaharlal Nehru, in his "Tryst with Destiny speech, said, "....Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments". True, we may be far from that One World governed by one govt. But in the path of human evolution, trade came before nation states. So it is safe to assume that Golablization of markets is but one step towards Golbalization of peoples. In other words, "Globalization", even it a broader sense is inevitable. This means that eventually markets will be global, so will be the companies and so will be the people working in them. Hence, by induction, people (read Americans) who do not train today to compete with other people (read Indians, Chinese) will end up receiving unemployment benefits. There are several countries trying to avoid this pitiable situation to their population by using trade restrictions - for instance, by giving tax benefits to companies employing people from Buffalo while giving tax punishements to those employing people from Bangalore (assume disclaimers) - all in the name of Socialism. Is this good or bad? Am I saying Socialism is an outdated concept? Nope - for the simple fact that we still don't have a One govt. So what the hell are you saying? - Hang on mate, why else do I have a "Part 1" in the title.

Atlantic horseshoe crab

A few days back we saw a crab like creature with a long sharp tail on the New Jersey shore. It was lying on its back on the sand struggling to turn back. Our friend, Dinesh helped it with a stick to topple it back on its feet and it went away into the ocean. We didn't know what it was at that time and wondered if it was a stingray fish. Today at the local library there was a sea animals show and the horseshoe crab was the guest of honour.

Do you know that, horseshoe crab species is pre-dinasour age? 250 million years back it existed on this earth and survived whatever happened here that destroyed the dinasours! It has blue blood, no teeth, no claws and its tail is only useful to help it turn itself back on feet. It is completely harmless to humans!

Is borrowing money good for you?

If you have $100 to invest in one of three different ways that gives back three different returns, say 12%, 15% and 20%, all on identical terms, which one would you choose? Obviously the investment that gives back 20%, right? Of course! Individually we want the most out of our money.

The counter intuitive concept in an investment is the fact that leverage helps to maximize the returns. In India, we are always told not to take loans ever. Even Kambar says, "Kadan-pattar nenjambol kalankinaan Ilankai vendan" when he refers to Raavanan. However, the fact is that borrowing funds to invest yields higher returns and is actually encouraged by Governments around the world including in India. Let's look at some math.

You invest $100 on a business that generates, say $120. i.e. 20% return on your investment. Clean and Simple.

Now suppose you borrow $50 from your bank at 10% interest and invest $50 of your money on the same business. You owe bank $5 in interest. So your returns is $15 on $50. i.e. 30% But wait it gets better.

All governments give incentives to people to borrow money because that increases economic activity of the country. That is, you get tax incentive on your interest payment. Suppose the tax incentive is 20% on the interest payment. You end up getting back $1 from Govt. for paying $5 interest to your bank.

That makes your returns to be $16 on an investment of $50. i.e. 32% return on your investment.

All you did was borrowed half the money from bank and played by the rules. You are subjected to the same risk in both cases of the business failing to generate the target revenue. But simply by leveraging your investments, you have increased your returns!

Before you rush to bank to borrow and invest, make sure your investment is guaranteed to generate the revenue. Don't borrow and invest in stocks!

Next, let's see how this math can lead to disaster if not handled carefully.

Jeans banned in Indian colleges!

This is a controversial topic that has raised lot of discussion in the news thread. Thought one particular comment on the thread was interesting.

"When I entered high school, it was the first year when girls were allowed to wear pants. Since then of course, clothing standards have dropped to the point where girls are wearing next to nothing on top of low cut, tight jeans or short-shorts. I would have screamed my head off in high school that it was unfair to tell us what to wear. Now that we've had 30 years of 1/2 dressed high fashion and I've become older and wiser, I understand why modesty makes sense. Our schools, especially here in CA area a complete disaster. There are many reasons for it but requiring that the girsl dress modestly and that boys dress respectfully is a good start. considering that harmones are bubbling like volcanoes, particularly in teenage boys, simple steps like this would make a difference. I remember the days when people dressed up nice just to go to the movies! I'm not advocating this but I would even be for school kids wearing uniforms. It puts them in a different frame of mind. Trying to get kids to sit still, pay attention and get an education is not only difficult but as we see from our dismal failure in the last 20 to 30 years, imperative for the future of this country. Looking back, it does amaze me how much my opinion has changed. It is said that the devil is in the details and I must concur. The small things that I thought didn't matter at all turn out to be very important not only in themselves, but are the blocks on which other decisions / behavior are built. It's really hard to see this when your're 15 or even 25 but as I have accumulated experience in life, it has become very clear."

Of course, ton of other views are expressed in the thread. Worth checking it out.