What do government officers do?

I have spent the last 5 days reading about the life experiences of Jagdish Khattar (An ex IAS, MD of Maruti Udyog 2000-2007), visited two government offices (NHAI and Railway Board) and a Visa processing center. Four very different government run organizations — with key differences lying in full/partial governmnet ownership, Indian/UK, policy/operational, service/manufacturing — but also similar. All of them existing to do essential public servcie jobs, and with their tasks being of regular and routine nature. What struck me was the deep entrenchment into routine working and it being THE JOB (NHAI and RB) as against outsourcing it or breaking it up (Maruti or UK VISA). People in NHAI and RB were busy with routines, and this has become their life and job.

This also reminds me of a remark in Mr. Ashwani Lohani’s ten year old book — “ Remaining busy is considered synonymous to deliverance. How busy an individual is has become an established norm for judging the operational efficiency of the person” Pg 6 Ch 1 and later what follows is a “A perpetual frown on the face that conveys the impression of carrying the trouble’s of the world on one’s head” Pg 7, ch 1. The Sarkari way of working!

I am uncomfortable with this, and the perpetuality of this routine working! The troubling questions — first and foremost– Is there anything wrong with this sarkari way of working! If not, we are fine and let us carryy on as is. If it worries us, the existing options lie in outsourcing (UK Visa) or in change in ownership (Maruti)! The second question – are these THE options or we can think of alternatives beyond them. The third question — How long will the bureaucracy take to think of the alternatives! Will the other stakeholders hold their patience for all this time? How long before they start exploring the existing available options.

The looming threat! Maruti negotiated when it found that the only option for it lay in replacing the routine manual material movements with conveyors and robots, quite in contrast with they had thought of 2 decades back. UK Visa office cut the work out from their embassy and handed it over to low paid Indians. We continue to tell our students — recognize that the nature of work is changing and is changing fast! When will the sarkar recognize the need to shed the routine working and hand it over to their own or external systems. Devote the highly intelligent resources that they possess to more value adding roles!