Work Culture of Government Undertakings in India
By Ram Bansal, 5th Jan 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutBusinessAnalysis
In public sector undertakings in India, even Engineers behave as head clerks for the defective work cultures they have developed over time.
Two Public Sector Undertakings
Two public sector corporations – M/s Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) of U.P. government, and M/s Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) of government of India, I have been heavily suffering for not getting electricity and Internet connectivity adequately, respectively, have Engineers in all official positions concerned with consumer/customer services. But with my experiences of the past few years of dealings with the officials, I am of the opinion that although the persons sitting on the official seats are educated as Engineers, they are no more behaving as Engineers but just like Officers. They can’t even be called Managers. Here is how I differentiate between an Officer, a Manager and an Engineer with respect to their business organizations.
Officer, Manager and Engineer
Officer
An officer supervises work of clerks engaged in completing paper formalities rather than doing any productive or creative work in the organization. He/she is neither trained in any technical field related to productive activities, nor has any interest in these. These persons are as good as head-clerks. For their seniors in the organizations, and outsiders related to the organization, they just behave like a post office of transferring messages collected from others.
Manager
A manager is trained in manipulating workforce to take productive work from them. He/she may not be technically competent in understanding technicalities of the productive activities but have to be psychologically competent in handling those involved in technical activities.
Engineer
An Engineer is a person who understand technicalities of jobs of his/her subordinates, guides them if the need the guidance in handling their jobs, and implements plans for making the technical activities under his/her jurisdiction to run without any problems. They are responsible for smooth working of the system under them and work for it through their subordinates. All productive activities in the world are thus related to Engineering whether these are supervised by Engineers or not.
Work Cultures of PVVNL and BSNL
Both these organizations have technical systems needing Engineers for keeping them in good health and functionality. But in both the said organizations, no official takes interest in any activity related to the technical system functional under him/her but leaves everything to the lowest level working hand under him/her to do whatever he/she can do or has a will to do. I take a live example of this.
Underground cable connecting Unchagaon Telephone Exchange to the rest of the network in the country is showing open-circuited for the past 36 hours disconnecting about telephones, cellular phones and Internet connectivity to thousands of BSNL customers spread in about 20 villages connected to the Telephone Exchange. Only one Junior Engineer along with some laborers for digging the ground has been trying to find fault and rectify it but has been failing in understanding and rectifying the fault. All the officials above him up to the district level – Sub-divisional Engineer, Divisional Engineer, Assistant General Manager, Deputy General Manager and General Manager are just in their offices and occasionally asking him the status of the fault and that ends their responsibility and duty in the matter, although all these officials are qualified as Engineers and are supposed to conduct themselves as Engineers. But the work culture of the organization has reduced them to be just Head Clerks in the organization, good enough just for collecting and passing on the information and they feel happy about it. Picking of official phones for listening to public complaints of defective services is avoided by them.
Similar situation exists in PVVNL too where all system breakdown and restoration services are left to the lowest level workers only and higher level officials even never having in the matters related to the technical system under their respective jurisdictions. Such defective work cultures of these organizations are because of these organizations being owned by the governments and all officials being highly paid by the governments from public funds. The absolute security of job and the salaries has made them quite complacent and oblivious to their duties and responsibilities to the public.
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15th Jan 2012 (#)
GR8 post
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