Following Professor Sitaram's lecture highlighting the importance of heroes and how even public companies can also succeed, here's an interesting story which I came across some time ago.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/jul/eco-bridge.htm
The Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam, which was on the verge of being liquidated, has now turned the corner and built over 330 bridges in three years. The cause has been championed by Mr. Pratyaya Amrit ( :-) ) , an IAS officer of the batch of 1991.
The best part about this story is that it was effected in Bihar. Presently, the company is looking at expanding beyond Bihar and building bridges in other states!
The takeaways from this story are multifold. For instance, Mr Amrit came up with the idea of the “Mobile Inspector” system where all Executive Engineers have a GPRS enabled sim card in their phones. They can go to the site, photograph the bridge, take out their pencil stylus and fill in details like the name of the bridge, its location and status. It is then directly sent to the chairman who sees it on his computer in his office. Everyday, the Chairman monitors the progress. There is thus, a new sense of accountability.
The story is a great read and was shared to me by Vikas. I felt it has a lot of importance for this class. Comments please?
Regards,
Amrit Acharya
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6 comments:
Another positive contributor to the success in this case is the early recognition that the CM Nitish Kumar gave him, and the trust that he then placed on him.
One could argue that, given his performance the CM's actions were nothing special. But the state of the Indian polity is such that people who do what is expected of them are also to be appreciated!
When you such implementations in a state like Bihar, it gives you hope about the political scenario in India.
The company is looking beyond the state of Bihar now and it'll be interesting to see how different states react, i.e whether they encourage this company or encourage their own 'state' companies.
Very often in our class discussions we have come across the factor of 'low motivation level' and 'lower potential' and capability of the government employees in executing projects. This article ,to me, seemed to be a very good example to prove it wrong. As Mr. Amrit said “employees are willing to work hard. All they need is a right opportunity and direction."
Perfect case illustrating the role of a champion in a project. I think this amply reiterates what had been discussed in class with respect to several projects(including RS Bharati of Alandur).
Such projects do give us some hope of the public sector still performing. Developing infrastructure for the poor certainly needs large amount of government funding and this is the case here too.
As we draw to the end of the course, I think we are able to see the bigger picture linking all the issues discussed through the course and their importance for the success of a project.
This is definitely a good example but i agree with Harsha that polity does have significant role in it. Imagine the same situation with CM quite indifferent of the achievement & sort of devoid of fund. Was it possible for them to sustain this performance? I dont think so. I have got plenty of instances from this state of mine, where a single man attempted to refine it but was taken aback rather devastated by this indifference. The idea lies in projecting the things - the goals sustainable to these chambers in their perspective & all. The idea is to think that everybody needs development but the aspect of it, the definition of it varies. Its the synchronization of all we need, Which will reflect in terms of capacity building & trust.
Is this "mobile inspector" system some sort of readily available software that one could use?
Any pointers?
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