Posted 2:55 AM by The Consultant
Hi,
For last couple of weeks , I have been thinking a lot about the state of affairs in India as of today. If you have read my last three blogs, this statement would come as a great shock to you. Why on earth does a PJ king want to venture into these areas?
Hmmmmmmmmm....
The answer to that is what I have written so far represents only one facet of my personality. This is not Pushkar, the complete package. Rather, it is one of the add ons.
Before I launch into my discussion, I feel that I must make one thing very clear. I am not happy wiht the way things are going in India. The deterioration of the Political class, growing religious intolerance and population are some of the great problems facing India today.
However, I am not going to analyse why this is so. It may serve only as an addition into the Whats-Wrong-With-India Encyclopedia.
What I would like to try and do is to present a few workable solutions to some aspects of our overall problem.
In today's blog, I would like to say a few words about our bureaucracy. I have seen it operate as a helpless and hapless citizen.
But, I also have seen some glimpses of this big creaking machine from the inside. As an auditor, I frequently came into contact with many govt. officials and saw how the system works. Well, "works " might not be such a suitable term. Perhaps, "behaves" would be a better word.
One of the main drivers of its behaviour is the Rulebook. Thousands and Thousands of interconnected, overlapping, confusing, outdated, irrelevent and unnecessary rules and regulations and guidelines and norms and formalities constitute this rule book. The irony of the situation is that many govt servants themselves are not aware of many of these rules. Or even if they are aware, they are not necessarily aware of its meaning and true purpose. These rules were framed a long time ago and no one has bothered to check their utility in today's world.
But, to an extent, these rules are necessary to ensure proper internal control and management of funds. It may sound quite surprising considering the current level of corruption in Indian Govt. But let me first say what an internal control means to a rule maker. To him , it means that there is a proper seggregation of duties, responsibilities and functions. These rules try to ensure that there is a system in place which automatically checks the validity and authenticity of an transaction that is being processed. Sadly though, collusion and cooperation between the rulebrakers have completely defeated this purpose.
Let me give you guys an example. A system in bank insures that when a customer presents a chque for withdrawal of funds, it is received and noted by the person at the counter. It is then passed on to the officer who checks whether the cheque has been coorectly made out, whether the funds are sufficient and whther the signature matches the one in the record.
Then the cheque goes to the cashier who makes the payment.In an ideal system, the record keepers cannot have access to the funds and vice versa.This is internal control. Now at the end of the day, the records kept by the officer, the guy at the counter and the cashier are compared and they must tally. This is internal check.
Lets now see how a chequebook gets issued to a customer. It is issued on the basis of the requisition of the customer, which is checked by an officer. Then it is forwarded to the man in charge of the blank chequebooks, usually the branch manager who issues it to the officer who in turn gives it to the customer.
Now if these guys collude, they can pass off a False cheque as genuine and distribute that amount into various big saving accounts in disguise of commission or bank charges
The same thing happens in the govt depts. So what I propose is the introduction of technology in the critical areas. For example, an ATM serves as an improvement over the past system and completely eliminates the chances of THIS type of fraud.
If most of the routine monetary decisions are left to the computer, a great part of officialdom can be eliminated. The only job remaining will be to ensure that the computer programs are doing what they were supposed to do and that there have been no unauthorised changes therein.To verify that one can utilise the services of external audit firms or even technology giants like infy etc. Of course, this is not a foolproof system. But it removes a lot of clout that the lower level officials have over the citizens. One might say that the fraud now can take place only at a higher level as far as these critical areas are concerned.
Now the question is where do we get the money? I will say that the savings in paperwork and control mechanisms will be much much more than the fixed expenditure. An additional bnenefit will be the resultant surplus staff. That can be used in variuos understaffed areas like eduacation, family welfare and rural development programmes, health etc.

What do you guys feel? Is this an improvement? Please let me know. Please also let me know whther it is technically feasible and any further improvements can be made in that area.

The Consultant.

Posted 2:59 AM by The Consultant
HI,
well. its been a long time. certainly shows why i am considered to be a very lazy person! but the reason is exactly opposite. it shows that i did not have time even for one of my favourite passtimes. that is to attack unsuspecting humans with harsh PJs(poor jokes for the uninitiated) ( and , of course, untouched by the sword of my jokes)
well, when we talk about swords and jokes, it is very difficult to find any points of similarity. but , once u listen or read any of my jokes, u ll see that in facts they are twins, separated at birth and reunited at Pushkar mela!(proof)[:-)]
yes, my name is pushkar. it means lotus.but there is also a town in rajasthan in western india which is considered to be one of the most popular places of worship. the pushkar mela held there every year is a very famous event.
so now time for another poor joke.
what do u get when u cross a nightingale and hitler?


i dunno, but when it sings u better listen.
:-)

now, from PJs to philosophy.
though some of my critics maintain that there is little or no difference between my jokes and my philosophy, i do not believe so.
when i take a close and hard look at myself , i see a person who is very serious, though not taken seriously by others.
they do not realise that they are missing something that is very important.

well, dont ask me what they are missing. i dont know that. they are the ones who are missing it, not me.
:-)
hee hee hee
actually, they are missing the fact that it is quite possible to be a man of priciples with a great sense of humour.

on that grand and rather flatterring note, i ll end todays piece.

see ya soon.