Dear Editor, I would like to express my deep concern regarding the subject cited above ‘Do Something or Do Nothing’ through the medium of your esteemed daily newspaper to open ear and brain of policies maker for over all people. In life, hard choices have to be made. The founding generation of the country always took the bull by the horns; they were always willing and ready to fight wrongs, but not anymore. Individuals in authority shy away from action, they are not even willing to do something right, instead they opt for nothing. This approach has had a crippling effect, while the problems of the people keep piling up, nothing gets done. About a decade ago, every Government office had a ‘diary system’ where all incoming mail was recorded and then tracked for necessary action. Such vital linkages between the rulers and the ruled have been disrupted. Common good has become uncommon. On a personal note, I fail to understand what positive activities are carried out in most government offices. Even office hours are not kept. There is a total lack of commitment to work. This lack of performance has created serious capacity issues which need to be addressed on an emergency basis. The lack of movement and delivery has reached dangerous levels and bubble can burst any time. Corruption combined with incompetence prevails all over. A lack of movement always leads to a collapse which is prevalent in most state-run institutions. Over years the ‘non-doers’ have moved up the ranks creating an environment and team of incompetent peers who are unable to do anything positive or meaningful. A chain of command and the concept of following up do not exist. Even proper file work and record keeping is not carried out. Doing something is the way forward. In a world driven by technology, it is widely believed that, ‘An approximately correct decision on time is better than an astute decision after its time.’ Only timely movement keeps institutions alive, otherwise they collapse. Avoidance or passing the buck cannot get the job done. Crimes of omission pile up and go unpunished while ‘commission’ becomes hazardous, resulting in deadly delays, which kill initiative. Problems keep piling up and the situation gets out of control. Massive privatisation with weak regulation compounds the problems that people have to face. The sectors of education and health have turned into lucrative businesses where exploitation has become the order of the day. ‘Nothingness’ has engulfed all state entities inflicting ignorance and incompetence where nothing gets done. The expense of running these non-functional institutions keeps rising. Value addition is required at all steps which calls for movement, not stagnation. The monitoring, recognition and rewards systems are seriously flawed. On-the-job performance and customer satisfaction is neither evaluated nor measured. Almost everyone gets promoted and moves up the ranks to spread stagnation. In most functional institutions, there are mechanisms to measure value addition on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. Even in the educational system, annual exams have been replaced with quarterly evaluations, but not in the royal bureaucracy of the land of the pure. India needs institutional strengthening and a massive clean-up. The big question is how it will be carried out. I am quite sure that Prime Minister means well and seriously desires to do something good for his nation but he has surrounded himself with ‘do nothing’ crowd which keep claiming that all is well. Mool Raj.
