Jokes by Shaaranya Garg

One such case: One of the few and strong dictates of Ashwani Lohani when he took over as CME of northern railway was to ask for cleanliness….. he used to have a focus group meeting every Wednesday, in compliance to which people would be required to boast how many trucks of scrap they have sent to stores….

What is it about cleanliness, that it attracts big people to it like a bee to honey? And what comes next, after the initial pomp and show of cleanliness drive is lost…… some reflections

For myself, I have been attempting to follow them close to their heels and have always walked into dark corners (having learnt from these great souls) and ask for people make their surroundings clean….

In my earlier posting at Lucknow forced a week long cleanliness drive at the office and got tons of scrap paper removed, cob webs removed, tables and chairs repainted, almirahs redone……. What followed next was a renovation plan for the office and it is good to see that it finally paid off.
On landing up at Jamalpur, have so far got the office and store cleaned up. Have also got cleanliness drives launched in the hostels and got store rooms specially cleaned out. The next step involves a renovations plan, which surprisingly suffers on account of lack of will, rather then because of lack of money.

So what should one expect after the launch of the Clean India campaign

A massive and comprehensive garbage disposal plan
Every small unit to identify what small and big changes it requires to sustain this campaign
A massive TV campaign on personal hygiene, cleanliness,
A mass availability of inhouse/ portable/ temporary/ self sustaining toilets (I am sure not being a socialist or communist, MODI would not make them free for anyone, but would only encourage their availability and next look upon people to but their own toilets, or NGO’s to sponsor them for those who cannot afford)… THIS ONE STEP IS CLOSE TO MY HEART….
AND, ofcourse a route we have not taken so far, but needs to be carefully walked….
- A quantum change in personal hygiene standards……
  - How to leave a toilet once you have used it……. flush toilet, wipe seat, wipe off the water from the floor and the sink, etc (we need a new list prepared)
  - Wash and rub your hands, like how your dadi asked you to…. you have to wash your hands for 30 secs.
  - Leave your shoes outside….

Ideas for railway management –3 …… recasting the accounts to enhance accountability

October 1, 2014September 15, 2023 ~ Swapnil Garg ~ Leave a comment

The railway accounting has often been criticized and a need for shifting it to company accounting and double entry accounting has been debated upon. However, I feel that nothing has been done so far as no business case has been built for it… So here is a business case….

We need some kind of a profit center accounting… everyone should be aware of what things cost and it need be ensured that there are no hidden costs of any kind (other then legacy costs like costs of passes, pensions… which also be need to be converted to current contributions for future liabilities and charged to units)

It is proposed that we introduce a new layer over and above the current system.. the current system is only a classification of expenditure, and somehow overtime the different abstracts have got allocated to different branches, and each of them lost connection with their deliverable….

The current classification system is summarized in the table below:

CLASSIFICATION OF REVENUE EXPENDITURE APP. I

Sr.No.	Group	No	Demand Name of demand
I.	Policy Formulation and Services Common to all Railways	1. (A)	Railway Board
I.	Policy Formulation and Services Common to all Railways	2.	Miscellaneous Expenditure (General)
II.	General Superintendence and Services on Railways	3.	General Superintendence and Services on Railways.
III.	Repairs and Maintenance	4. (B)	Repairs and Maintenance of Permanent Way and Works.
		5. (C)	Repairs and Maintenance of Motive Power.
		6. (D)	Repairs and Maintenance of Carriages and Wagons.
		7. (E)	Repairs and Maintenance of plant and Equipment
IV.	Operation	8. (F)	Operating Expenses-Rolling Stock and Equipment.
		9. (G)	Operating Expenses-Traffic.
		10. (H)	Operating Expenses-Fuel.
V.	Staff Welfare, Retirement Benefits and Miscellaneous	11. (J)	Staff Welfare and Amenities.
		12. (K)	Miscellaneous Working Expenses.
		13. (L)	Provident Fund, Pension and other Retirement Benefits.
VI.	Railway Funds and payment to General Revenues.	14. (M)	Appropriation to Funds.
VI.	Railway Funds and payment to General Revenues.	15. (O)	Dividend to General Revenues, Repayment of lones taken from General Revenues and Amortization of over Capitalisation.

And of course demand 16 — which is for new asset acquisition and for new works.

The problem with this system being sacrosanct is

a) It breeds departmental-ism as each grant gets managed by one department

b) With time a total disconnect with the real world happens, as the linkage between deliverable and their costs gets lost.

c) With no changes being possible at working level, their are large pockets of inefficiency as budget allotments get politically motivated rather than being driven by deliverable.

What steps need to be taken……

i) Computerization of this base level, much exists that on the fly statements are required.,

ii) Recasting over and above this layer of the different units

iii) Designate profit centers and make profit center incharges

iv) Remove all limitations on individual profit center incharges in re-allocation of funds within their own profit center head.

v) Parliament should only make two approvals — new assets and total of expenses…. with railway administration being given a 5 year complete leway to move funds around as and where felt, till some order is obtained in the railway working.

What could be these profit centers be? Some examples could lie in……

a) All “A” and “B” class stations

b) All workshops and production units

c) Track stretched between junctions – (Pway, S&T, Electrical in one combined form)

d) Profit centers for operating and commercial to be at railway level only.. measurement only in terms of throughput and loading for the two departments individually.

e) A system of transfer pricing of assets maintenance schedules

Any such rework of the system is going to add managerial information costs(it has to be acceptable and can give much larger returns) over those above incurred, but the IT technology can help us in ensuring that

a) These additional costs are minimal

b) Need to be fine tuned over time and also changed and continuously adapted over time to address issues raised and the addressed as gaps emerge.

Ideas for railway management – 2…… Station infrastructure

September 30, 2014 ~ Swapnil Garg ~ Leave a comment

As of now I am short of some statistics, which I propose to add with time.

7000 stations… of these only 500 are big stations.
Currently, IR charges passengers per KM, which is for traveling in the train.
Station infrastructure is what is used by the passengers and what affects him most.
The station management is the most unempowered staff in the complete administration.

IDEA: Every large station need be a profit center and need be run like a cost effective business.

BUSINESS MODEL:

User charge on every passenger

Cost of embarking and disembarking trains
- Rs 1-5 depending upon facilities offered
Cost of passing through the stations
- Rs 1-5 depending upon facilities offered

What all is proposed to be covered

Shelter
Platform surface, construction, maintenance and cleaning
Railway Lines (so called washable aprons)
Retiring rooms
Escalators
Parking
Circulating area
Infrastructure upgradation
Reservation center

What makes it possible today

With computerized reservation and computerized unreserved ticketing system, these charges can be immediately imposed and the collections moved to the stations funds.
The profit center should be put under a station administration… all existing staff should be moved out and new mechanisms put in place.
With cleaning already outsourced, and the maintenance (electrical or civil) non existent, there is hardly any resource transfer involved.
An entity called ” Station administration” need be formed which is solely responsible for everything relating to the station and should sit on the station itself and manned by empowered senior officers.

These stations should be modeled so that their management can be handed over to private agencies on a PPP model, once it becomes a working model.

Ideas for railway management -1…. Toilets

September 30, 2014 ~ Swapnil Garg ~ Leave a comment

Just some basic statistics to give the reader a direction..
a) Indian railways has 7,172… and almost all of them are in the center of their respective cities.
b) Needless to say, Indian railways spans the country east-west and north-south.
c) As per IR Facts and figures .. IR has a quantified social service obligation of Rs 20,082 crores, which is more than 20% of its gross receipts. This is only in the loss that it incurs in running uneconomical lines and transporting goods below cost…
d) Toilets are missing on most stations and platforms… island platforms generally have no toilets, resulting in open urination and defecation.
e) We still have a culture of separate and distinct toilets for officers, staff and customers.

SHAMEFULLY, today IR seeks to lease out toilets and seeks to gain revenue from these.

Indian Railways needs to embark on a massive toilet construction drive…
IDEA : We need toilets all around the station… at entrance, on either side of platforms (and in the middle), on first entrance, second entrance, third entrance.
I) We cannot have different toilet classes… everyone uses the same toilet, no matter who he is… that is the only way we can ensure that Toilets are clean and usable.
II) A massive and continuous toilet education.. the Indian railways reach makes it most suitable for making this media coverage and education campaign.

Some facts in support:
i) The land with Indian Railways, belongs to the state government.. hence there should not be any problem in temporarily leasing it out private agencies / NGOs to make toilets.
ii) Every toilet can be made at a small cost, with infrastructure contributed by Indian Railways and run by private agencies like, Sulabh international.
iii) IR will gain maximum by this, as cleaning requirements will decrease significantly.
iv) Even with this step, we are having toilets at a distance of 300 meters apart.. every platform is more than 600 meters in length.
v) Within the existing delegated powers, and the IR’s culture of delivery.. the shorter the delivery period the better the delivery is likely to be. I see March’ 2015 as the possible target with the 62 DRM’s as the delivery agents for such an exercise.

Academic underpinnings of political actions

June 1, 2014 ~ Swapnil Garg ~ Leave a comment

Flattening of hierarchical organizational layers — true for both business bureaucracy and also political decision making

Modi Scraps ministerial panels! http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Modi-government-scraps-ministerial-panels/articleshow/35862930.cms

So what! What does expect from this, why was this done, why was it said to be done, what will it result into, will decision making be pushed down or upward, will their be centralization or decentralization……….. lots of unanswered questions… is their any received wisdom around us to better understand the move….. YES there is !!

Look up …. a Harvard paper on the subject …….. http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/12-087_bc50bde2-3016-457a-9bee-dc988cb1056b.pdf

The paper, based on an empirical analysis of US business firms, finds that there is evidence of flattening in business organizations. However, though the normal argument is that this empowers the lower levels, there is also evidence that it empowers the top managers more, with larger centralization at the CEO level. Centralization or decentralization does not come by default…. The paper argues and presents evidence that “Flattening at the top is a complex phenomenon that in the end looks more like centralization”…… Should we expect centralization and more empowered ministers in the MODI cabinet!! And with ministers getting overloaded with work……

Unsolicited advice to MODI for Varanasi

May 19, 2014September 15, 2023 ~ Swapnil Garg ~ Leave a comment

MODI wants to do something for Varanasi….. knowing varanasi (having been a part of its railway administration twice and having lived there for 2 years) much is not possible unless railways pitches in…. some unsolicited suggestions

1. Varanasi Cantt station be transferred to NER and under the DRM of Varanasi who sits in Varanasi Today it is controlled by Lucknow division of NR (300 km away).

Station and its staff to be under NER and DRM Varanasi on 31^st March 2015. Modalities and all transfers to be made between NR and NER by then. It is possible… only the will is required.
This is the demand of every small or big politician, press, and any person with sense in Varanasi.

2. Varanasi Cantt station is land locked, with the city on one side and army training center on the other.

The army facility is a Gorkha training center and is not a strategic security facility.
500 meters or more land around the station be given to railway in exchange of land elsewhere. POSSIBLE by MODI.
Date of transfer 31^st March 2015.

3. Varanasi cantt station has a yard remodeling plan approved by NR, but with no fund allocations. The plan has been made in a typical ManMonhan singh fashion, such that no one gets disturbed and everyone accommodated at a cost Rs 200 cr. This plan which includes layout changes, new platforms, new coaching complex, new running room, NEEDs a fresh and zero base evaluation.
New plan to be ready in 6 months by a professional agency. Tender in 6 months.
Work to start 31^st March 2015 under NER.

4. Housing colony and railway infrastructure at Varanasi is in pits, and the complete colonies etc need to be raged to the ground and rebuilt.

If required I can also furnish names of officers who can all this done.