How To Make A Difference

"Which step have you reached today?" The picture with this question makes round on-and-often on social media as also at workplaces (gembas¹).

I don't know its source but would like to give credit to this picture that in a way, among other things, triggered this blogpost.

One can reach the 'top-step' within a moment if one knows "How to make a difference!"

One can make a difference to a given situation by training her brain to be positive. Brain can stay positive by keeping it engaged through positive behaviors.

Here is a 3-point agenda that I try to use in order to engage "myself" in positive actions and stay on the top-step.

1/ Attempt 1-small improvement a day.
2/ Appreciate improvements demonstrated by others.
3/ Say "Thanks" , "Sorry" , "Please" at every opportunity. Good if it's complimented by an action-oriented message fitting the situation rather than merely being goodie-goodie. Good leaders do so: clap as well as "slap" if necessary and appropriate.

Attempt 1-small improvement a day

This helps one to take responsibility to make a difference to status-quo of a given situation. It helps brain to challenge a problematic situation while staying positive on corresponding action.

My S.O.S. commitment to myself is to save-on-something (S.O.S.) each day be it something in the material¹ world or say water¹ or some activity such as say a few wasteful walk-steps.

This may sound like an idiosyncratic fellow, that I am. But it's difficult to dispute the fact that global-warming has crossed threshold levels of warning especially because of greed-based human activity. And of course, driven by the way we measure performance (by want-based results than the need-based input\s - process\es) at both the business as well as at individual level.

If you keenly observe you may find that a lot of human activity is unnecessary & wasteful. If one finds ways and means to combine, merge or eliminate a few activities it can definitely save some material, some human energy as well as ease some difficulties for self and others.

The other day I told a friend of mine that I'm ok with SMS invitation of his son's wedding instead of a hard copy. I even offered him my telephonic time to convince a few common friends so that he could print those many cards less. Helps "Save¹ a Tree" mission! Although it's good if 'such offer' comes from receiver's end, more often than not it gets ridiculed, sometimes as being a miser.

In another instance, a new acquaintance did appreciate my act though, when I humbly returned his business-card after scanning it immediately on Android phone. Hopefully I communicated the message S.O.S. !!!

This brings us to second point of the 3-point agenda.

Appreciate improvement efforts demonstrated by others

This one forces one to catch someone making efforts to do something good and the desired. Remember, "making efforts" or s\he "taking efforts". 

It helps one to "observe" others. It helps to appreciate the 'process' they are involved in rather than waiting for the 'results' of their action that isn't in their control. It forces one to reflect and thereby begin observing "self". It's like subtly learning from others: a source of input for the first point above. 

It also improves your active listening ability.

No need even to say 'Good' while appreciating. Just a 'Smile' as a token of expressing appreciation is OK. It's the fastest and implicit way to recognise others. It's likely to be valued by the receiver because it's done just-in-time (JIT) for the occasion.

I did it the other day when I saw a small boy putting off fan while alighting from lift. In less than a few seconds in the lift, not only I could reinforce his desired behavior but also could earn a friend. Unknowingly I am sure 'thought' process of both of us got triggered in a subtle manner. 

It's like respecting a person by taking cognizance of her efforts. 

Say Thanks, Sorry, Please everyday

This one helps one to express gratitude in an explicit manner. If done particularly when others are at a "receiving end", action-oriented messages fit for the situation also get accepted.

Other day morning my ATM card got stuck. Luckily currency notes came out promptly. Security guard on duty tried his best by fiddling with the keyboard. He seemed to be in a typing-speed contest. After a couple of minutes he acrobatically "slapped" the machine at a couple of spots but in vain. Looking anxiously through the glass as few more morning-walkers joined the queue, he offered to summon another guard on duty on rear-side door of the bank that was yet to open.

By the time both walked in to the scene (the Gemba²) a transaction-slip rolled out of ATM at snail's pace. "It came out  automatically without asking for one", I exclaimed.

"Subahmein machine ko garam honeko time laagta hai (Machine takes time to warm-up in the mornings sometimes.)", one of them said with scenic expressions.

Card however was still stuck inside. Their 'warm-up theory' refused to work this time. Sensing the 'warming temperature' out in the queue, they again "slapped" the machine. By then a bank officer walked in and 'slapped' them with seemingly abusive body language. This time again the machine made fun of all of them. It gently rolled out the card itself without even anyone touching the machine. Fearingly I grabbed the card before it could get "sucked in" again.

Looking at their embarrassed (pinkish-red) faces I said, 'thank-you' and 'sorry-for-the-trouble'. "Now 'please' do some Hansen-kai learning about this frequent 'warming-up theory'. You need to put some operation and maintenance practices in place to remove such abnormalities so that a lot of energy can be saved for yourself as well as for so many people in the morning rush hours.

Although upset, I tried to make a difference by staying cool. That's what was in my control. Of course registered a complaint! 

Doing what's in ones control rather than staying indifferent itself leads to the first-point i. e. making an improvement!! 

All 3-point actions are possible anytime, anywhere, autonomously without any budget, without anyone's permission or approval!!!

Footnotes

1: Go paperless.. is the punchline in my mails that I practice each day. An inefficient paper-mill uses 300-400 ton-water per ton-paper !.. 83,000,000++ton paper is wasted each year !!.. A-Paper-Saved => Lot-of-Water-&-A-Tree-Saved !!
2: Gemba means the workplace where action takes place. One can find a lot many improvement opportunities if the gembutsus (the ATM machine that makes abnormal noise, the card that rolls in, the paper that gets stuck, etc) there are powerfully observed for the way they function. 

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important? 
Eternally Happy! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride 
Happy-Birthday-to-Youooo
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Love is Care.. Care is Love !  
Deity is in the eyes of the beholder 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Ball-Basin-Team Combine !  Maketh The Smile Divine !! 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Need maintenance sense as well!

Many-injured-as-escalator-in-thane-moves-in-reverse-direction.

Eight-escalators-at-thane-station-to-undergo-check-this-week. This was supposed to be in May 2018.

Five-hurt-as-thane-station-escalator-stops-moves-in-reverse-gear.

And now at the end of July 2018 I read that, each of the escalators on each of the platforms at Thane railway station don't work almost every alternate day. That's what the loksatta daily reported in July. (See the picture.)

The above news items remind me of my earlier blogpost titled 'need-basic-civic-sense-to-use-technology'!

Don't you think apart from the 'civic-sense' the service providers need a 'maintenance sense' to handle technology! They need to be sensitive to the costs associated with the poor quality of service (CoPQ) such as above.

The recurrence of the problems as above makes it obvious that problem solving needs to be to uproot the root level causes rather than mere first aid treatments.

Users and proponents of technology need to appreciate that it is just an enabler.

By itself technology can't help if we can't help ourselves by an appropriate 'civic-sense' and 'maintenance sense'!

Who's the 'mother' to the machine!

Tea spilled over in the plane!

Some droplets splashed on her child sitting next to her.

She didn't even bother about tea falling over on herself.

Instead, she repeatedly kept asking the child whether she was alright! She meticulously checked her for harm, if any, on her hands, her face, her body.

Not less than ten times did she enquire, expressing a great concern each time she asked.

Child, however, kept herself busy playing.

Nothing had actually happened to the child!

The child was perfectly alright although the mother herself was concerned!

How many of us do this at our workplaces!

May be we do it to people!

But what about to the 'machines' and of course to their problems?

In spite of the squeaky noise that some machines make, we stay indifferent .... sometimes even after they breakdown!

On the day we become 'mother' to the machines, not only the TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) has started but it's like reaching it the halfway at least! 

Going beyond the thoughts, the Kaizen culture itself has begun!

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

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Will It Work Here?   

7-waste Process ... That's How Morons Work 

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

How To Make A Difference  

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !  

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?  

2-2-2-2 Winning 2-Minutes To Customer

Don't Oversell!

Do you know that the automobile dealers earn more by servicing your car than selling it to you?

That's true!

Not only do they earn on labor charges but they also earn double the margin on selling spares that too recurring than selling the car that's one time.

That's why they keep proper record of your last servicing and remind you without fail to get your car serviced.

Last time when I went to repair a dent on my car, the service station promptly told me that the car was not serviced for last two years. That I'd not changed the engine oil nor the brake oil.

I told him that resort to condition based maintenance (CBM) rather than time based maintenance (TBM).

As a TPM (total productive maintenance) practitioner, I knew how to check the condition of the oils rather than blindly change it just for the sake of it based on time or the kilometres run. This is especially true if your car is yet to run the kilometres specified by the manufacturer.

The other day, I got a call from the refrigerator company reminding me to renew the service contract that was going to expire at the end of the month.

I called him for the last service of the previous contract in force since it wasn't cooling adequately. A worker-turned service mechanic arrived. He quickly trained me and my wife on how to optimise the settings: The rotary temperature switch, the diffusers near every shelf as well as inside the deep freezer, etc.

When I told him about my reluctance to change the gasket as told by the earlier mechanic, he demonstrated to me that there wasn't any leakage at all.

In fact he showed that the gasket was a magnetic one: a typical mistake proof (Poka-Yoke) design.

The younger service mechanic who had suggested replacement (saying "बदल डालो") was an employee of the outsourced service contractor. Typically they earn more on spare parts as I said earlier in case of an automobile.

In quality parlance, we call this as overselling!

The worker-turned service mechanic of the manufacturer didn't oversell!

I was impressed, offered some juice to the guy!
No doubt that I renewed the contract at once!
Became the Brand ambassador!

Brand image is built like this!

So next time, you think of servicing, remember this blogpost.

You may lose in the short run if you don't oversell!

But, customer will keep coming back to you!!

You'll win in the long run!!!

Water Matter

Study the two videos attached!

What do they suggest?

One of the videos shows the amount of water that goes down the drain (rather gets wasted) in a single flush stroke.

The other one shows the wastage of water is reduced considerably.

The latter was a case of handling the lever consciously to release it early enough so that only needed amount of water is used.

Sometimes it's a case of wrong setting or lack of maintenance, both resulting in the lever getting stuck. See picture-1.

In any case, human is to err!
The error however results into defective output and hence it produces waste.

But then what can one do?

See picture-2. This one is a mistake-proof (called as Poka-Yoke Kaizen in Japanese industry!) design of the flush tank.

It has two levers side by side: one for economy flushing and the other for normal flushing. The user needs to choose the right one consciously of course! Another opportunity for Poka-Yoke that is!

It's good to eliminate defects and waste early enough at initial or design stage itself. That's why this pillar of TPM (total productive maintenance) is also called as 'early equipment management' or 'initial flow control' (IFC).

It's the job of everybody to think, workout and feed their ideas about probable failure modes (FMEA, failure mode and effect analysis) so that corresponding Kaizen solutions can be incorporated at design stage itself.

The objective is to make the offering easier, faster, and less costly to make it and service it as well. In fact the design should, as far as possible, be maintenance free during the life-cycle of the offering; the concept called life-cycle-cost.

Can the change advance from thoughts stage to action now?

 

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Change is a hearty game!

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall 

Take Habits For A Ride 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Not-Soon, Says Monsoon

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall   

Crying? It's time to kick-it-off!

'What's on TV?', wife asked.
'Dust', the husband said and then the fight started.... I began my speech with this PJ.

It was a presentation in front of about hundred strong audience attended by president of the company along-with management team of it's business units (BU).

Presentation began with chief of one of the business units appreciating each and every employee from a pilot for their wholehearted involvement. In about four months time the process and machine's performance effectiveness improved from 65 percent to 90 percent. After him, his team began sharing experiences.

"Seventh month in a row, machine hasn't broken down yet", said the mechanical maintenance supervisor.

"And the machine will 'tell' us well in advance before breaking down", said the operator. "Post implementing the TPM¹, it 'speaks' to us as a child does to the mother".

"It's rare to see this kind of culture and sense of pride in their work": The finance head of the company couldn't resist temptation to voice his observations after watching their enthusiasm and before-after pictures of achievements.

Can money buy such a kind of engagement and satisfaction?

Message of the proceedings was loud and clear to the audience: Although Google might be a knowledge bank with sea of literature on technicalities of TPM there to be read and researched, generating such a kind of positive attitude and sustaining the corresponding improvement culture is a different ballgame altogether: The one of soft dimensions of TPM: The Kaizen culture that needs to be experienced to be believed.

This was a story of a TPM pilot and a couple of it's support functions covering about fifty grass-root level employees from a continuous process plant. The change had begun with their top management team going to shopfloor to find opportunities for improvements (OFI) and implement changes, the Kaizens. Doing this on behalf of the employees was to take the 3D (Dirty-Danger-Difficult) realities on the floor head-on and demonstrate leadership commitment.

Unlike the man in the PJ 'showing' dust on TV, that's the way to get others to proactively "see" dust on their machine and prevent it from entering it's bearing as also from breaking it down. That's the kind of behavior expected from managers expecting a deep rooted change in their employees.

And when people in power do so, their subordinates change the very definition of problem: There is nothing called 'problem'. It's just the absence of an idea to find solution just like there's nothing called 'darkness', it's just the absence of light. 

And when they focus on solutions rather than 'crying' of problems they 'see' more and more OFI possibilities (Kaizen-Teian). That's the beginning of a change in culture.

If you want to experience such an improvement culture then it's high time to be ruthless with self and ask:

How many times do I practise it myself rather than 'telling' others to behave?

How many times do I 'catch' others to give positive strokes (recognition) for having tried to make a difference?

How many times do I procrastinate like that character in cartoon saying: I definitely want to praise your hard work but I just can't find the right words!

It's time to enable self and then others!
It's time to kick-it-off!!
It's time to do-it-now!!!

Footnote-1: TPM means Total Productive Maintenance or Total Productive Management as some like to call it.

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

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!

Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 

In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Take your career in fast lane! 
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!  
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  
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? 
Make checklists your friends  
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers

Water-Hour: What'an-Hour

What-An-Hour it was!

On our monthly-music-meet day, suddenly power went off! 

Although the electricity company had declared timetable for load shedding, usually their poor work practices don't allow them to stick to it. In absence of power to music system our lunch had to be preponed.

I picked up my snack plate that was still around me, rinsed it a bit and reused it for lunch. I used the leftover water from my drinking glass. 

My friend exclaimed at my 'funny' behavior. I said I wash my plate regularly at home as well as wherever else possible. Whenever I wash hands, I pick up at least one utensil to wash. Two-birds-in-One: Hands and the utensil washed using same amount of water that anyway I would've used to wash hands!

While writing this post, I remembered the so-called 'countdown to EARTH HOUR (23rd March at 20.30 hrs)'. Just before it had 'begun', the same friend had reminded me to participate in it. Why not observe such HOURS every MINUTE, I had exclaimed. That I had just returned from a around where I'd put off a couple of fans including one in the toilet. It was left ON by the previous user. 

While I do appreciate importance of such HOURS, the intention can be best evidenced by making it a habit taking it beyond the HOUR.

Hats off to those who instead of waiting until such '20.30 HOUR' head right away to 'Switch-off' an appliance left 'ON' inadvertently though. 

Power generation needs human activity, water and other resources. Salutation is because such people are able to see direct or indirect link of almost every wasted human activity to that of waste of water.

Hats off to those who commit to be conscious to a cause in present tense. Hats off because they don't allow thoughts to constipate. Because they go beyond their 'knowledge' of 'zero-wastage'. They make others learn through their demonstration of 'an-action-each-moment-a-day'.

One must experience the satisfaction one derives and the respect one earns by by committing to 'Save Even-A-Little, At-Each-Opportunity, Each-day, Each-Minute...' rather than once a year on a "Happy........ Day!" 

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall 

Take Habits For A Ride 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Not-Soon, Says Monsoon

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall   

Spare-A-Day On Sparrow-Day !

March 20th: The Sparrow-Day!

When I read about The Sparrow-Day a couple of weeks ago suddenly I realised that nests created for them in my house were missing for over a few months.

We had hung one each in each of the balcony of our bedrooms hosting them since over a decade. All of them were stripped during civil maintenance work of our buildings. I was wondering how come all of us at home forgot to put back their homes.

In the barrack kind of buildings (called as chawls in Mumbai) where I was brought up, almost every alternate week there used to be a wedding or a naming ceremony.

Common area between the two rows of the tenements (each being just about 10x10 feet in size) would get crowded with so many activities including children doing their homework to running tiny businesses such as assembling a safety-pin. Among them one would find a typical mother (self employed on assembly line) feeding it's crying child by her side.

"One bite for the Sparrow, one for the Crow", she would rhyme¹ expecting the child to get pacified. The child would eagerly look around trying to locate sparrows.

We could actually see the sparrows dancing around while crows playing their own mischief. In fact we used to maintain wooden nests for the sparrows to breed. So many sparrows would gather around and chirp making the mornings sound beautiful. Toddlers would love to go after them.

Apart from their entertainment value they would play their role in sustaining ecology.

Where have all of them gone?

Modern cities are actually on the verge of making them extinct. Concrete buildings make it difficult for then to make nests. Concretised and dirty surroundings don't allow them to find grains, nor allow them a dust-bath.

What's the solution?

The least we can do is to make up for our mistakes. I made it up by putting back their homes moment I realised my mistake a couple of weeks ago.

It's very simple. Hanging a plastic bag with some padding inside is enough. Sparrows would do the rest.

I also put back a couple of pots full of garden soil so that they could take dust-bath.

Within a couple of days, a couple each in each of the balcony had already finished survey of their prospective homes. To my luck, within another day they moved in lock-stock-and-barrel.

No Advance, No Deposit, No Rent for (their) homes in a city like Mumbai in exchange of an 'Unwritten-Agreement' by sparrows to entertain and help sustain ecology!!

That was a small beginning again, a small difference I had expected from myself by the day of the Sparrow-Day today. Now not only March 20th but for me and my family every-day is a: Happy-Sparrow-Morning wake-up call and a

Happy Sparrow-Day!!!

A ©MaiKu poem on this:

एक घास काऊचा, एक चिऊचा

मोठया घासाचा ध्यास, हाच मोठा विषय चिंतेचा

फरक पडेच 'पड़णा-यास' त्याचा

Footnote-1,
¹In Marathi language the wordings are
एक घास चिऊचा, एक काऊचा ! Read above a ©MaiKu on this.

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

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Casuals Turn Serious, Shun Inaction

Leaders seriously enable casual's work
Turning serious, casuals shun inaction-n-quirk
Excellence springs in action of all men-at-work

The above Haiku is inspired by spirited action at  grass-root level on work-floor (Gemba) of a chemical complex in Western Gujarat.

I returned happy from there. Enthusiasm of faculty as well as of the management team was mirrored on shop-floor. It was genuine. 

Thanks to the 16-strong leadership team, the Director and the CEO for their whole-hearted participation at Gemba. They worked on the grass-root level concerns by removing Dirty-Danger-Difficult part in their work.

This is the way 'companies-on-excellence-journey' choose to give message of their 'seriousness' and their 'sense-of-urgency' to change-for-better. They work towards allaying fear of failure.

Unfortunately in many companies most managers, HR in particular, play Administration (HRA) role rather than  action-oriented HRD role. 

HR role is one of Developmental (HRD), necessary to build people for culture-change like the one demonstrated by leaders as above. Building people requires working with them hand-in-hand rather than mere instructions. It is to invest time (more than money) in making serious efforts in order to enhance their knowledge, skills and capability. 

Kaizen-Claps to all of them for doing so! Eagerly waiting to take them to next step en-route the TPM initiative in second week of the New-Year.

HAPPY-YEAR-Ahead to One-&-All!

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

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  

ABCD of India Shining

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

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

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?

That's how some business partnerships work

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Take Habits For A Ride 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

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!