Do we have a choice?

By Goutam Ghosh

TO THE question posed above, the gut reaction of most of us with no access to influence will be a loud "No!" Though the query does not have the crucial prepositional phrase "on .....", the absence of options for most issues makes qualifiers irrelevant.

When you are at the bank to draw your salary quickly to plug the loss of patience of your creditors at your door, you must wait for the cashier to finish sipping tea or coffee or to end the chat on whether a tactless, willow-wielding cricketer could have added to our national side's pitiful score if he had not nudged the ball moving away from the off-stump.

While you and others fidget, the discussion continues within the entry-restricted zone. I am yet to come across a nationalised bank where work begins on the dot but is wound up everywhere as the clock strikes the end of business hours. Even 15 minutes gained a day is good. It means free money - without doing what the salary is paid for.

Queueing seems to be encoded in our genes as much as breaking it is. More than three decades ago, we habitually camped through the night outside the Eden Gardens, braving the bitter cold, for a ticket to see some visiting team wallop the confidence and the red-leather sphere (we didn't have day-night matches and so no white ball) into the pavillion.

No less was our enthusiasm for a ticket to a cultural. There were many who broke in to the queue and many more who were ruthlessly bounced out by the public. At the passport office recently in Chennai, people formed a queue instinctively but at the wrong counter, only to be told that names would be called out when the papers arrived.

But many stuck to the queue, probably hoping, quite irrationally of course, that their position in the queue would expedite the paper movement and automatically sort out the order of the passports in transit.

It took hours before people got their papers but none raised the voice beyond a whisper, directed usually at an adjacent, unwilling ear.

The annual motor vehicles tax collection will easily lead the list of inefficient services. Only some places have a shamiana to protect us from a scorching sun. An insurance company agent camps under it or a tree to sell vehicle insurance policies.

One cannot but sympathise with the agent who braves the microwave-oven-like heat for a small commission.

The long queue moves slower than a snail. The registration certificate (the RC book) moves from one person to another seated at a distant table, to be verified before the tax token is prepared and the RC book stamped. By the time the book reaches you, it could be an hour since you paid the tax in cash. But none complains, though each tries to fan away the heat and shifts weight to prevent the legs turning numb. One wonders why the tax cannot be collected in December, January or after sunset.

The plight of those paying their phone bills, property tax, and water charges is probably less deep but it is exasperating nevertheless.

The computerised railway reservation system is impressive as you can now reserve a seat on any express train between any two places far away. But as you wait, rarely in an air-conditioned hall, you notice that the adjacent queue moves quicker than yours. You fidget, you grind your soles, you crack your knuckles, sigh, or crowd the counter to see why your queue moves slowly. As it may not be worthwhile changing queues if you are just 10 heads away from the counter, you stick to the queue and wait your turn.

Is it impossible to make the system more patron-friendly? The Railway Board could change the computer programme so that the system keeps track of the number of keys punched by the personnel at the reservation counter.

As each member of the staff has an identification number, it is possible to keep track of how many keys the operator punched during his shift.

As the number of reservation or cancellation forms is an evidence bundled into a box at the end of the shift, the work done by a booking clerk can be assessed. As the number of forms never equals the enquiries made at the counter, it is necessary to keep track of the number of keys punched as well.

How can this help us, the railway patrons? Once the number of keys punched and the forms processed by employee A is known, the computer can rank employee A on a scale of 1 to 10. The Railway Board could decide the weightage to the two aspects of a reservation clerk's work. Once this score is displayed on an LED board above the counter, you or I will have the choice to decide which queue to join.

The system can also identify those who need training to raise their speed. It can also identify who should be rewarded for efficiency every year. Given the size of the Indian Railways, those who do not respond to the improvement schemes can always be relocated to less time-sensitive slots.

A senior official of Southern Railway almost hit the roof when this correspondent broached this issue with him. "This cannot be done. As it is we have problems manning all the counters. If an LED display shows the efficiency ranking of an employee, there will be serious labour problems. The display will show to the world how inefficient an employee is, and no employee will want that," he said. Maybe, but how else can the system be made more patron-friendly?

And why the railway reservation counter alone? This system or a variation of it could be pursued, refined, tailored to fit any public or private service-oriented institution.

After all what murders efficiency or initiative are time-bound salary increments and promotions, or even rewards (cash or a push up the hierarchical ladder) based on factors extraneous to initiative, originality or productivity.

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