Although steering is in your hands

"Pothole kills woman; daughter booked for driving bike rashly"!

The news has been making news on media and the more powerful social media in last couple of days.

The hue and cry forced authorities to take cognisance of the Voice-of-Customer and get back to business of governance.

One of the responses was apprehensive of the (road) "contractors having political clout" which is why the contractors go scot free. "They all do! how else can they charge huge money and yet the roads develop potholes within weeks? govt/babus dont care how long the roads stand quality test as long as tenders are passed and money changes hands!" the response said.

No doubt that the steering is in our hands which should be able to save us ourselves off from the extrinsic hurdles like the one making news above.

But there is certainly some truth in the response that referred to the "contractors having political clout". Many of them do have! The system helps them to do it by design! 

It's an open secret that the steps on the corresponding ladder are as follows:

1/ Corrupt and powerful political leaders promote their 'trusted' lieutenants (party workers) as contractors in partnership. This is especially rampant in municipalites and is perhaps the lowest organized entry point for would-be political leaders.

2/ The nexus earns high margins by delivering shoddy work (if at all they do) hand-in-gloves with corrupt Babus.

3/ Both finance themselves handsomely to the next election. You may see gold chains weighing in kilos around necks on various hoardings as an evidence.

4/ Both become more powerful and the cycle continues back to step-1 until the next generation or their kith and kins take over elections. You may see all of them together on hoardings including their "new born ones" now a days.

(Caveat.. There are good politicians, party workers as well as good Babus but very few in millions.)

What do you do now?

The steering to vote them out is still in our hands but it needs to be steered with more force than 'theirs'. Hope we're able to do so soon!

Until then good job done social media for good cause!

Andon For Visibility Before 'Andolan'

It was a huge protest (Andolan!) after the infamous Delhi gang-rape in a moving bus and another one in Mumbai. As a reactive fallout, one of the actions was strict adherence to the rule: Windows of all vehicles should be transparent.

This action is to bring out visibility, failure of which might result into crises such as above. Focus of this blogpost is to bring out it's importance generically.

Imagine there's no timetable, be it of a train or an exam or of a training classroom. And one is forced to keep guessing time of arrival/departure of a train or keep shuttling around notice boards that are usually difficult to locate/access if at all they exist at corresponding venues. 

Imagine seat numbers not marked inside an outstation train compartment or a theater.

Imagine a speed-breaker is not painted and you bump into it at 40 kilometres per hour.

Above situations may be rare in some cases. Visual systems in above cases in particular might have got more or less matured due to fear of resultant chaos. You are lucky if bogie of a train arrives at a designated location-mark on the platform. Now-a-days (inside a local train as well) they announce arrival of stations. You are lucky if 'sometimes it functions'.

In organised workplaces such Visual Systems are known as Andon: A visual communication management innovation perfected by Toyota. An example closer to you might be a display of token number in a bank alongwith an announcement and hooter sound to attract attention.

But why aren't versions on similar lines practised in other professions and places? There's a tremendous scope for bringing out visibility in order to make work predictable, prevention oriented and simpler in many other situations. The productivity benefits to customers thereby outweigh the costs of doing so in geometric progression.

A medical professional, for instance, might be able to impress upon a patient about speedy recovery if he hands over a Do-Don't instruction to be adhered to (featuring a sketch on how they work).

An electrician could display some sketches of the Do-Don'ts in case of a trouble that he shoots at. An accident may get preempted or a breakdown may get attended to faster with such Do-Don't lessons.

A computer mechanic could display, say, a sketch indicating where frequently possible loose connections can be mended autonomously.

A 'customer service' window could have 'steps' displayed with necessary sketches in case of actions to be taken during 'what-if' situations. Their office inside has signboards, labels on racks, files, etc. instead of a mess. Corresponding delays may get eliminated thereby.

An organisation, for instance, could make it's career-plan-ladder self-explanatorily 'visual'. Attrition may get reduced as a result.

Absence of practices such as above are examples of poor visibility prevalent in typically complacent organisations.

Sometimes lack of visibility is inadvertent. Sometimes it's intentional in order to protect vested interests.

Poor visibility breeds abnormalities such as defects, delays, corruption,etc. Ultimately it leads to less optimised performance as well as spoiled relationships.

That's why excellent workplaces promote visibility in innovative ways by using graphs, pictures, radiant colors, blinking lights, hooters, etc. as done in Seiton practice of Five-S's. 

They know that Andon For Visibility is better than resultant Andolan due to lack of it. They know that it's as dangerous as driving on a heavily raining day with a very very poor visibility as low as a couple of meters.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.

That's How Morons Work
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!
That's How Morons Work
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
What You See Isn't What's Made
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
 

Shining On Farmer's Suicides!

Farmer's Suicides is not new to Vidarbha in India.

What's new is newer opportunities and innovations in 'claiming' compensations therefrom.

Few weeks ago a news flashed regarding 73 farmers in Marathwada killing themselves after a freak hailstorm that ruined their crops.

Whether it's a freak one or man-made is a separate topic. But there are strong evidences that this is nature's way to react to excessively unwanted human activities.

It got revived in my mind because of another news I read on twitter today. It was about 334 farmers getting compensated by over 10 million rupees in spite of not having any farm.

The news highlights cozy nexus among local goons, politicians, corrupt officials, other people in power in corresponding departments.

It's actually an open secret. At times a drunkard is worth half a million for such a nexus. Because when a drunkard dies, the nexus conspires. It 'makes' him a 'farmer' who 'committed suicide'. With the help of corrupt bank officials of a small-time cooperative credit society or a bank, it creates fake documents. It gets all other 'documents in order' so that the 'loan' can get compensated and the amount can be distributed.

A research on google will throw light on many such crooked innovations in order to dupe government. Greed drives them for more.

Innovators galore and shining but I am sure investigators are more intelligent and shining.

Will the really affected farmers forgive such conspirators ever?

A MaiKu© hereunder on the topic:

Crooked Innovators galore
Greed drives conspirators for more
Vigilante drives them to shore

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Prayer for drought-ridden 10822-Villages

ABCD of India Shining

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Be Shame-less Or Water-less

कधीतरी सापडेल का शोधता-शोधता ?

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

You Can’t Take It With You, but You Still Want More

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green 

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1) 

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2) 

Elections on anvil for voters' will

Election on anvil
Drives political thrill
Snatches voters' will

With News-mill & Public-life-at-spill
Politicians relish a delicious kill
Without respite to electoral bill

Elections are on anvil.
Elections usually drive political mills that snatch voters' will.
Mushrooming News items drive people's businesses and boost marketing zeal.
It's an opportunity to spill public-life that provides politicians with a delicious kill.

One of the employees of a company I am associated with couldn't get renewal of license done. As a result the material that had governmental controls couldn't be available within desired time. It's operations got affected for over a month.

What is the loss and cost in the process?

Profitability of the suppliers affected.
Profitability of the supply-chain itself affected due to delayed supplies.
Inflation up due to enhanced demand-supply gap.
Reduced income to daily-waged labour.
Above all reduced income to national exchequer itself due to lost GDP numbers.

This is about corporate life that has impact on public-life as well in terms of inflation.

But what about direct hit to public-life due to absence of government staff in offices under the pretext of 'Election-Duty'.

Someone goes to rationing department and finds staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to get domicile certificate and finds staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to University department to find staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to school to find even teaching staff on 'Election-Duty'.

Last year even exams got postponed around the vote-counting day. 

Under normal circumstances the machinery at least functions sometimes if you are ready to move your papers yourself from table to table for 'babu's signatures. Under circumstances such as 'Election-Duty', the machinery doesn't function even at snail's pace, that too officially. You may run from pillar to post. It'll all be in vain. 

All this at higher cost. Cost of wasted time. Cost of fuel and energy to run from pillar to post. Cost of overtime paid for Election-Duty. Cost of compensatory paid-holiday for Election-Duty. 

Not that staff loves Election-Duty for these benefits. In fact they don't. Because they have to report there in-time. Stay there full-time and do work: Search names, make slips, put stamps, take thumb impressions, tally the whole process, count votes, etc. etc. No 'escape' route. 

Anyway, why should public suffer at such extra cost? 

Isn't there a lot of scope for planning and organising? 

By the time we guess so, let's hope that the Voter-turnout improves and the voter votes for corruption-free governance, stability, growth and prosperity.

Here's a MaiKu© i. e. My-Haiku on elections.

Opposition in a nightmare
Over the glass that politicians share
Shaking hands on voter's care

In Marathi

घेउ तूला अन् मला
पण देउ नको त्याला
माथी राजकारणी खलबतं, हाती मद्दाचा प्याला

In Malvani (Konkani)

घेवया तूका आनि माका
पन घालू नको त्येका
दारूच्या गुत्तात राजकारणी सोडीना हेका

©MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

ABCD of India Shining

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan

Take your career in fast lane!

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Customer or Custo-Mer? 

An Experience of Heart-and-Soul

Less With More And More Gets Sore

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

Today, 26th January, is the Republic-Day of India. 

Republic according to dictionary means: A state where sovereignty rests with the people or their representatives, rather than with a monarch or emperor; a country with no monarchy. Sovereignty means: The liberty to decide (choose) one's thoughts and actions. The state of making laws and controlling resources without the coercion of other nations.

So if good laws are made and corresponding procedures are made simpler, leaner and easier to follow then good governance follows.

All like good governance. There are exceptions of a few whose 'living' itself depends on non-governance.

For good or desired governance, voters need to choose (vote-in) deserving and desired people in government who make laws and procedures for governance.

An article on the republic day eve yesterday (the national voters day in India), reported that more than 40% of young respondents between 18-29 years age were not registered yet as voters. Top reason: Process of registration is cumbersome!

When things get difficult¹ to perform, people generally avoid doing the desired. Similarly, unless the process of voter registration is made simpler, prospective voters won't come out to register.

Apart from this, agent's businesses thrive on such difficult processes. Enemies of democracy proliferate. Their premium goes up. Authorities earn 'speed-money' to speed up 'difficult' processes. In the process of speeding up their side income, rules get a passé. 

Although at a premium, infiltrators fighting for their survival and to get a foothold in a foreign country go out of their way to foot the bill. Danger of dirty (read corrupt) candidates getting elected gets more likely. Governance getting a miss becomes more probable.

What's the solution?

People-in-power need to make processes and procedures simpler², leaner and easier. But they might take their sweet time to do so.

Meanwhile in their own interest, voters need to take that extra pain to register themselves. And then come out; walk that extra mile to:

Vote For Governance !

Rest Will Follow. In absence of that extra pain, the enemy within and the enemy outside both are sure to gain.

So on this Republic-Day, let's use that sovereign liberty and our choice in order to (as my MaiKu© poem on the subject goes):

Make It³ Simpler² n Leaner!
Rest Will Get Easier !!
Life Will Become Merrier !!!

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Footnote

1: 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult work is avoided by people. A fire-fighter, for instance, won't willingly jump to fight a fire if he isn't protected by appropriate gears. Unless danger to his life is mitigated, he will not go out of his way to get people out of danger.
2: MISER: Minimize, Improvise, Simplify, Eliminate, Reduce
3: Things under our control

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 
Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
Some Moron Some Great
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?
That's how some business partnerships work
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan
Customer or Custo-Mer? 
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Less With More And More Gets Sore
Should one care for value? 
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Bust-wants, Boom-needs

Inspired by Voters-Verdict

Bust-wants, Boom-needs
BROOM corruption, appeasement and greeds 
BRING governance, performance, jobs.. Not subsidy-feeds

© MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save!

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore 

How To Make A Difference 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1)

See the picures and decide for yourself who is cremating the law.

Picture-1 & 2: A two-wheeler and a private vehicle is being towed away by RTO authorities from 'No-Parking' zone. This is a welcome move. Towing sub-contractors seem to do their duty diligently since business to them is on piece-rate basis. 

Picture-3: Vehicles of illegal businesses (three-&-four-wheelers that can be seen in red circle) are however ignored. In fact, the towing vehicle was prompt enough to 'somehow' pull a two-wheeler crammed between three-wheelers parked in the red circled zone on left of the picture.

Picture-4 gives a perspective. All the pictures were taken on same road on 19 th August at around 14.00 hours within a span of about 60 minutes.

Illegal businesses that can be seen in picture-3 (at yellow arrow mark) had actually sprung up over a couple of decades on municipality-plot reserved for a first-aid-center.

Why such discrimination of law-&-order? Why vehicles of the illegal businesses are ignored for instance in spite of being parked in 'No-Parking' zone?

If one looks at the pictures with keen eyes many more questions might spring up that throw light on discriminatory practices. 

Why had the municipality in the first place ignored sprouting up of illegal businesses that too on their own plot?

Obviously because of their political connections that help them enjoy all the utility support including electricity, water and even emergency services such as fire-brigade at the cost of law-abiding citizens. No rules or permissions such as that required for a legal business or a legal housing complex apply there.

Why there is no tree-cover on road while compound-walls of housing societies adjacent to it are full of greenery (as in picture-1&4)?

Obviously because no one cares for trees on road. It's a no-man's land. No doubt that municipality had planted saplings but without making adequate watering-arrangement. During my evening walks I used to carry water-bottles in order to water the saplings but in vain. Haphazardly parked trucks that repeatedly ran over the saplings were the culprit. This can be seen in red-circle in picture-4. 

However later on there was an improvement as can be seen in green-circle in the same picture. You can see a mistake-proof (Pokayoke in Kaizen parlor) divider for saplings which prevents parked vehicles from running over saplings. Never-the-less there is a good action that should have actually been thought about 15-years ago. Gemba-Kaizen action there could have triggered such improvements. I had suggested this to the Municipality as a part of ALM (Advanced-Locality-Management) while counselling them but in vain.

Why footpath on one side is not made-up yet?

I may sound negative here particularly when aggregates for the footpath can be seen laid there. Actually this footpath had been lying unmade since over 5-years when the other-side was made perhaps claiming bills for measurements of both the sides then. Such mal-practices did happen in past.

I have a few such pictures taken over a decade including that of ignorance of maintenance of street-lights, corrupt officers taking bribes, etc.  

Picture-5 for instance was taken on 28 th February 2011 when there was a fire in this illegal 'business-district', more than once at that. Obviously safety rules  have been flouted there with corresponding authorities turning a blind eye to it. Even trees in the compound got burnt there.

Incidentally, I was a member of a local team that had got this road declared as 'No-Parking' one a few years ago. This was done particularly because the trucks that still get parked there are a nuisance. Early morning they race engines disturbing sleep in the residential zone. 

Not only there have been a few cases of chain-snatching from behind the trucks but also a few accidents. A senior citizen who had no option but to walk on streets due to open gutters on broken footpath had fractured her hand when she got caught between a parked truck and a moving vehicle.

What is intriguing is that corresponding bureaucrats do have authority and corresponding politicians do have power but none seem to exercise that just-in-time (JIT) i.e. at right-place at right-time in right-amount.

Let alone installing amenities such as first-aid-center or trees, obvious basic needs such as eliminating dirty-dangerous-difficult (3-D) situations on footpaths also seems to be taking back seat behind their vested interests. Face-lifting at the time of elections however is always prompt while COPQ (Cost-Of-Poor-Quality) incurred due to such criminal acts gets conveniently forgotten.

God save India and Indians!