Great Companies to Work in India:Why There are Only 2 PSUs in the 2014 List of 100?

Today morning, while glancing through the business news, there was a not-so-important news coverage that got my attention. The news was about some organization doing some research to publish the list of 100 odd companies that are found as great places to work in India. 

Google India Pvt Ltd topped the list.[ surprisingly, Google's Indian wing, though registered as a private limited company in India, does not have a website of its own!] As per available information, Google India Pvt Ltd has 1625 satisfied employees, who really feel their company is a great place to work in India. There is no need for any one to doubt that, because it is the satisfied employees of Google who made their company- a small business venture registered by two PhD students of Stanford University almost recently in 1998- to become a 50,000 employee strong multinational entity whose name has become synonymous for internet search. Even this blog that you are reading would not have been possible without the dedicated work of many of these people who work for this great company.

Now the same Google helped me to find more information about the research finding that I was reading in the newspaper in the morning. I have found out the list of those 100 best companies which are declared as great companies in India to work during 2014 and also more information about greatplacetowork.in 

When I observed the list closely, I find most of the companies are either privately held or privately owned public limited companies, except two companies that are government owned. The latter in India are commonly called the Public Sector Undertakings (PSU). 

Having decades of experience in a PSU, it is not any thing surprising for me that many PSUs are not in the list. But as I have guessed rightly, I could find the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC) and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) in the list, thought not in the first fifty. 

NTPC, though a PSU has been born with a work culture that is much different from other PSUs. Much of this work culture is because of the top leadership of this company right from its incorporation. This company was some how fortunate to get good top management team right from the beginning. For individuals and for corporate entities, good genes make lots of difference! Thus this PSU company was able to develop a good work culture and produce good leaders from within. Its present CMD, Dr Anup Roy Choudhury who has been leading this company for more than a decade now is an eminent technocrat who could maintain that work culture and improve it even under the severely constrained work environments that PSUs generally face. [You may also read: Why Indian Public Sector Undertakings Fail to Perform Now?]

When NTPC was founded way back in 1975 as a government of India owned, central PSU for setting up and managing large scale thermal power plants, the government handed over the small Badarpur thermal power station which was a poor performer and a small power producing utility to the management of NTPC. From less than 100 MW power production at Badarpur in 1975, NTPC now is a company with an installed capacity of over  43000 MW of coal based thermal power. With a workforce mostly drawn from other PSUs, this feat is some thing of a remarkable achievement and a fine example of exemplary work culture that this CPSU has been able to develop and sustain! There were many of my colleagues who preferred to shift to this company way back in the beginning of the 1980's. I do remember a senior colleague who shifted to this company calling me too join them giving due regards to my experience in thermal power chemical control and water treatment! Though I declined that offer due to personal reasons, I was a keen observer of the work culture of this PSU and the outstanding progress this company has been making as compared to other PSUs which could not emulate the NTPC work culture!

Let me narrate one or two examples of that work culture that I have personally experienced. Some time in the late 1990's the PSU where I worked, faced some serious problems with some of its captive thermal power plants. These problems were essentially related to poor management of the power station chemical control including its water management. These captive thermal power plants were my initial work place, but when this incident happened I was no more working in the power plant department. Yet some member in the top management of our company remembered me and called me to get my advice to overcome the problem.

I studied the problem and gave my suggestions. Our company could have gone ahead to implement the suggestions that I gave. But the work culture of our company had become too complex by then that the top management wanted me to undertake an all India tour to other thermal power stations to study those problems in a few other thermal plants and then give my technical study report for further actions.

So I visited a few large and small thermal power plants owned and managed by a few state electricity boards, some other private companies and also one super thermal power station at Ramagundam managed by NTPC. When I reached, Ramagundam by road from Vijayawada, after visiting the thermal power plant there, I was not knowing what to expect as I did not know any one there.

I did not have the opportunity to observe the NTPC culture till then. When I reached, the gate of the power station I found the security forces of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF)- the para military organization of India which is mandated to provide security to most government owned industrial establishments in India. Having experienced the attitudes of CISF jawans in some other places including the PSU where I worked, I was a bit apprehensive. The existing work culture of the place does affect these forces too and many a times people find it not so pleasant!

But to my surprise, I find the officer of CISF at NTPC-Ramagundam  very cordial and cooperative which was not what I was expecting. This officer helped me to get in to contact with the right officer of NTPC and talk to him over phone from the security gate. The response from the NTPC officer too was a pleasant surprise. This officer- who was junior to me by the PSU rank- instructed the CISF officer to make the entry pass for me and the CISF officer did that immediately. (In many other PSUs, this thing could be a harassment even for the company guests!) The NTPC officer told me to wait for a few minutes till he sent one company vehicle to pick me inside. That was another surprise because, the company where I worked, even the top executive might also find it difficult to do such a thing! 

The company vehicle arrived at the gate to pick me within a few minutes and I was taken to the officer whom I knew only just a few minutes, that too over the intercom of NTPC at the security gate. 

For the rest of the day, I had a rewarding professional experience. I got the opportunity to meet almost all the officers of the plant and interact and exchange our professional experiences. I could visit the plant with them and I was greatly impressed to know about their working style, a style that invariably reflected on the upkeep of the plant.

I was impressed by the office ambiance that my contact officer of NTPC had there, some thing many other private and government companies never bothered about. With all that atmosphere and authority that his company provided, I could feel the professional pride and satisfaction of my contact officer of NTPC. Obviously, such employees are going to make their company perform well! How the employee feels that way was obviously the distinct work culture of this CPSU which got developed due to the vision of its top management from the very beginning!

During the professional interactions, I found that NTPC Ramagundam was adopting a technique that was a bit more complex to manage a technical issue pertaining to its cooling water management. It was the same problem of our captive power plant too, for which I was sent by our management for detailed investigations. I gave my suggestions to the NTPC fellows too as I did to our top authorities. 

To cut the story short, within months, I learnt that NTPC Ramagundam implemented my suggestion where as my report eventually went to rest in my own organization with nothing happening. Later the situation in my organization with regard to the captive power production deteriorated further. Later, some of the captive thermal production facilities of our company were handed over to NTPC to be managed by an NTPC controlled joint venture. The power plant where I began my career too went under the management control of this new joint venture.

The first major change for these units under NTPC controlled management has been the drastic changes in the employee benefits and facilities. NTPC began their actual control of operation and management only after all the employee facilities had been created as per their own standards! And that is what makes NTPC different from other PSUs.

But that does not mean that NTPC or any other such organizations which find their name in the list of best companies for employees for 2014 would remain as such in the future too. They may change for better or worse in the future. And that all depend on the attitudes of the top management and the rest of the key authorities in their respective organizations who are responsible for making the people work earnestly, taking pride in their organization. 

If corporate history is any indication, there would be many companies that would compete in the future to find their names in the list that I mentioned above. That is a matter of prestige and some top corporate managers are too willing to do any short cuts for gaining such prestigious positions without honestly making any real cultural change within their organizations.

That is true with all management systems, be it of total quality  management (TQM), corporate social responsibility (CSR), Environment Management, Safety, etc., etc. 

In short, every thing ultimately boils down to people. If the organization is made of people having the 4 C's that I wrote some time ago, things would naturally follow a better path and the company would naturally be a great place to work. The more such people in the organization, the more it would be a better place to work! 

But there is a critical mass in this case too. When the numbers of the  4 C-people go down below a certain limit, the company or organization begins to collapse as it would not be easy for the company to make any positive changes by its own.

It would be an interesting study if any one ventures to study why only 2 PSU's were liked by their own employees! Of course, such studies and their findings would be of any use only when there is some one to examine those for positive actions!

Allopathic Medicine Labelling : Forcing the People Swallow the Wrong Pills !

Today morning I was searching for the the tablet that I am required to take regularly to keep my blood pressure within limits. I keep all those pills the doctor prescribe for me for various health problems in a small box which functions as my medicine chest.

Without my glasses I cannot read even the small letters of the newspaper. But my glasses are of no help to read the fine prints on the shiny metallic strips that hold most of my pills. I doubt the existence of  any one in the world who has such a marvellous vision to read those things printed on the tablet strips !

So normally I rely on my sense of touch and guess to identify the tablets that I am supposed to swallow every day to live !

As usual I was about to swallow a white tablet which I guessed as the one needed for my BP. But then as if from a premonition, I thought I should check it and make sure. So I tried to read the name of the medicine. With so much effort with my glasses at different angles, I came to the conclusion that the one I was to swallow was not the one that is needed for my BP. This one was some tablet left over from some previous prescriptions ! I could perhaps be an anti allergic tablet that the doctors consider as a panacea for all kinds of acute illnesses !

Typical  Allopathic medicine tablet pack labeling

Image courtsey: Google 

Being a person who is some what comfortable with reading and writing and the internet, I check the details of the medicines by searching the world wide web. Experience has taught me that I should not rely fully on what the doctor's say when it is a matter of swallowing their pills ! So I do satisfy myself before deciding to swallow any allopathic medicine. These medicines can do more harm than good if you swallow those like an idiot !

Today's incident somehow caused me to think. What would have happen if I swallowed a drug that is not safe having side effects instead of the drug which I was supposed to take ? What if the drugs in question have serious effects if taken or not taken ?

Then I notices another thing. None of these drugs have any legible writings on them to warn the patient about its side effects or its probable uses. What they have instead is a faint warning label : 'To be taken under the guidance of a medical practitioner only !'

So far in my life I have not come across a doctor who had told me all about the pill I was supposed to take ! The chemist is the one who interprets the doctor's code writing and tells me what, how and when !

But even that can not solve the problem that I faced. If I have many tablets to swallow at different times, I am at a loss to identify these tablets. Most of them look similar. The brand name is prominently written and does not make any meaning and no one is going to remember such complex made up names. The generic names again are written in micro prints that one needs some microscope to make out the spellings for a possible check with the google search !

How can an illiterate person identify the drugs when it is not easy for even a literate one to do that ?

No wonder then that the drug induced illnesses are on the rise. [Read this !]

Drug companies all over the world operate as a big cartel and this fact is now getting more and more clear to the public. Drug companies have their own reasons. But I think they should consider packing their products with readable information that the patients can easily understand.

While retaining the authority of prescribing the drugs kept with the medical practitioners, information about the possible uses, generic name, precautions, etc could be printed on the medicine packs in legible form.

Drug controlling authorities and the law makers also should think about it.

I think you would agree with what I wrote !

Generating Employment for Indians- A Layman's Suggestions !

I am not an economist nor an expert in finding solutions to the complex problems of a complex nation like my own !

But like many others like me, I do keep a watch on developed nations such as the United States of America or China or Japan, that have been making visible material progress. Their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), per capita income ,  human development indices (HDI), etc., amply correlated by visible physical features vindicate their superiority!

For example, my country India has been with a shamefully low per capita GDP of about $ 3700 . The actual purchasing power of the citizens of India are much lower than this figure. Regrettably, it appears that the Indian policy makers no longer feel the shame ! [See the GDP per capita income list of the world's nations here !]

Indians keep justifying the low per capita GDP on account of the huge population. But then they forget about China whose population as well as the per capita GDP are much higher ! This clearly shows that the Indian situation is on account of poor governance , administrative policies and gross mismanagement of public affairs! Perhaps all these happen due to the defective democratic governance system that the country has adopted ever since it had become a modern republic. 

Indians are too keen to watch the politics and policies of America rather than their own. I too am no exception. What makes me salute the American system is the importance that they give in generating employment to the citizens of the country. A US president is evaluated as good if he could implement policies which generate employment to the US nationals.

But unfortunately no Indian politician talks about employment generation. Neither is employment a factor for evaluating the Indian government!

There are thousand an one ways by which the Indian government can generate employment for millions of its unemployed so that they can at least have a decent living and surely elevate them much above the poverty line.

" Give me a fish, I eat for day; teach me to fish, I eat for a life time!"

This famous quote, supposed to be the favorite of Mahatma Gandhi is not unknown to those in the higher ruler ship of India. Regrettably they keep thinking of the ways in which such a teaching can be imparted to the millions only to conclude that such a thing is not practical in a country populated so heavily!

When thousands of Indians could make a decent living by the so called medical transcription work, I couldn't help saluting the US policy makers who could force their medical practitioners to shell out some of their incomes to others down the line who are only skilled for some lower level clerical jobs!

The westerners are advanced because they have realized the overall advantage of distributing the abnormal wealth at some hands to those who are not so privileged or fortunate. They too were having the mindset of the present day Indians before they faced the 'great economic depression after the world war-I'. But that had made them learn a lesson. And that lesson was about the importance of sharing the profits of business and industry to the larger populace for sustaining economic activities. 

The great depression forced economists to analyze the reasons for such a failure of economy when industrial production was at its peak! They found that all productions are useless unless there is a market that absorb the products and services. And such a sustainable market is possible only when business and industry willingly share their profits with their employees and the workers thereby enhancing the purchasing power of the people as a whole!

They learnt that the profits held up by large Corporate entities are not going to make the country or the economy progress. If they keep producing and accumulating profits for some time without enough sharing, there would not be any markets for their products and services and eventually their businesses would come to a grinding halt.

So, for longer sustainability of business, business tycoons and business leaders have to find ways to distribute their huge cash surplus held up by a few of them to a larger group of people, so that the latter could get some decent  income margins to be spent for more goods and services.  

Again at every such transaction, the government is going to earn from the taxes.

Indian corporates and government  are going to repeat the mistake that the westerners did early in the 20th century which triggered the Great Depression of the 1929.

Why I say this ?

Read this report : Large Indian companies sitting on Rs 4.2 lakh cr excess cash  !!

Had they distributed even 10 % of this cash, which in any case they have amassed by paying less to their employees in comparison to the world standards, the Indian markets would boom. The Indian government would gain substantially in taxes, both income tax and other taxes.

The cash surplus of the Indian corporates are because of their reluctance to pay dividends to their share holders and their reluctance to pay better wages to their lower rung workers and employees.

The cash surplus with them cause them to show a higher book value for their shares. This in turn causes poor investors to shell out their hard earned cash to purchase shares of these companies at higher margins. The investors do not get any return from the company as such. The investors seem to make profits by selling their high margin shares to other gullible investors. The corporates have nothing to lose !

Why such a situation which actually do not help the majority of the Indian public to enhance their incomes so that they have some better  incomes for acquiring better goods and services ?

Whatever the low income, the government tax them heavily. What is the logic in taxing an individual who makes Rs 150,000/- ( ~ $ 3000) per month and the corporate which makes Rs 150 million at the same rate ?

The individual is left with Rs. 100,000 /- where as the corporate is left with Rs.100 million. Since both are individual entities, the money deprivation shock to the individual is much more. The excess money accumulated by the corporate does not do any good for the country ordinarily. Because it it blocked so long as they find some means of spending it. The individual on the other hand has many unfulfilled needs. He could have released that 50,000 immediately to the market had it not been cut by the government as tax. The government would have got an equivalent amount or much more had this money were used by the individual for meeting his unfulfilled needs.

This kind of illogical mind sets in the policy planning levels actually make India a poor nation. They do such things which causes the money generation points dry before they mature.

Killing the goose ?

India can become the richest nation in the world, had the negative growth policies made out by egoistic know-all mindset of those concerned decide to ease out a bit by relaxing their muscles and minds.

Instead of distributing money for various labour generating schemes  here and there, if the government allows all higher income group salaried people who pay more than say Rs.300,000 per year as income tax to have a regular personal assistant for jobs like driver, gardener, security, etc and the payments made to such people to the extent of say Rs.200,000 as fully exempted from tax, can you imagine the number of regular employment generated in India overnight ?

Of course, some people might always do some manipulations. That should not be the reason for not trying out some innovative methods.

That kind of an initiative can make the government popular overnight . Not only they become popular, the economy would boom. It is a kind of action that can force the higher income of the upper strata of society to percolate downwards immediately.

In reality the government's income is not going to get reduced. It will also boom !

There could be many such moves. But for that the government should be ready to take suggestions from all, even from laymen like me. If the suggestions are good for the country they should be broadminded to implement it.

How long they keep themselves isolated in self made chambers of petty politics ?

The country needs people of a different mindset  for thinking and implementing such radical thoughts !

Let us hope we get such thinking people by 2020 !


View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ! ]

Modern Time Wasting Quality Management Systems !

Way back in the Nineteen Seventies, when I was an engineering student, computers had been making a big appearance in the world, emerging from their secret production sites located mainly in the United States of America.

The majority of people knew nothing of computers. But many of them had heard about this magic machine of the 20th century. But those who knew a bit more had apprehensions too. That is why some of them kept warning those top optimists about the dangers of  the 'rubbish- in- rubbish- out' (RIRO) kind of situation that is likely with the computer dominated world.

In my life time I have seen this transformation taking place. I have also seen the riro situation also that got developed in the world in most of the work areas. The computer helps in reducing work loads of some and simultaneously enhances the load in other areas !

Anyway, that is what I wanted to write in this blog. It is some thing else which got developed in the 20th century in a big way for giving benefits to the society. Here too I find it as a coin having two sides !

I refer to the modern Quality Management Systems generally now known as the ISO 9000 series.

Before starting what I am going to say, let me apologize sincerely to all the modern management consultants , consulting companies and a host of their institutions and organizations worldwide who keep producing massive documentations and presentations so vigorously and painfully that have helped immensely to make the Art of Management of the past to the Management Science of the present !

I honour their dedicated works. Because they who do it are doing it sincerely with full devotion. If I say some thing without much knowledge about their great works that might appear as foolish criticism to any thing coming under the domain of  management experts and gurus, even inadvertently, I should make the apology in advance.

During the initial years of my professional career, for a couple of years  I was a first line manager of a chemical process plant which operated on a semi-continuous manner. The plant operating staff who manned the various operations of the plant were required to maintain the quality and quantity of production in the desired levels. As the chemical processes kept happening inside the process vessels and pipes, for an outsider who visited the plant at any time could only see the plant personnel in the plant sitting here and there without doing anything. Apparently they appeared to others without any work ! Their actual works were all momentary that it was difficult for outsiders to know more about their jobs by watching them for some time. During those days I found it as one of the difficult task for me to make the top management of the company and the management systems departments such as the Industrial Engineering Department (IED in short not to be confused with the present popular IED which stands for Improvised Explosive Device which is of prime attraction to the mass media!) to understand the nature of the jobs of my people and the justifying the need of those plant operating personnel. The work of justifying the work often hindered the efficacy of the actual work ! This Industrial Engineering in itself was a great fad in those days in India that many industries had powerful IEDs which decided how many people were required in other works departments. Good or bad, the IEDs have almost become a non-existent thing in 21st century India. I do not know much about other countries !

The practice those days was something like this. If I needed a person to be recruited for doing a work in my department, I make a projection for 5 people, get it studied by the IED who eventually cut it to three based on their 'scientific work-time studies' and the two got further bargained at higher levels and ultimately I getting a minimum two instead of the one I really needed. A win-win situation for all concerned ! Had the management trusted the actual man concerned they never would have needed all those management time wasting carried out for months to decide 100 percent extra man-power !

But trust is a word which does not exist in the management dictionary !

Modern management and management systems are devised on the presumption that people cannot be trusted ! If you say that a wild lion cannot be trusted it is understandable. But if you say that a human being of the 21st century cannot be trusted then what is being said ultimately would equate man and beast on the same level.

The IED of the 20th century has reappeared now as various systems of management now emerging under one umbrella called the ISO 9000 series .

Is it doing any good ?

Of course! But that is perhaps for its practitioners and advocates !

Recently, a customer asked an expert opinion from an engineer working in an ISO 9001 certified engineering consultancy company.

Our engineer knows how to satisfy his customer by giving his expert advice in a moment.

In earlier years he had done that many times.

But now his organisation follows approved systems and procedures in accordance with the ISO certification. Unfortunately this kind of an advice is not listed now in the approved procedures .

Our engineer explained in detail his helplessness to the customer.

Poor customer ! He is slowly understanding what ISO means !

It is time for all those companies who pay through their nose and keep spending their time and efforts to get and maintain this ISO certification to do a rethinking.

I am just initiating a thought process !


[A special note added on 20-11-12: Mr Gunnar Rundgren, former CEO Grolink AB and the present President of IFOAM has authored a blog ' Quality management is a management fad elevated to divinity' in support of what I have written above. He has made a comment below giving the link to his article which I am providing here, conveniently clickable.

The major problem why the QMS under ISO 9001 would eventually bring about disasters for the organization is because of the luke warm or half hearted approach of the top management. QMS under ISO 9001 is envisaged as a management system standard where top management commitment, honesty and competence is of prime importance. I would like my readers, who are interested, to read this article : The Rise and Fall of ISO9001 written by Mr Ashok M Thakkar, President & CEO of ITTI Llc Roswell, Georgia.]

Had I been the PM of India !

I would never be the PM (Prime Minister or Chief Executive ) of this country and that would be true for 99.9999% of the Indian citizens.

But one or two of the 1.2 billion would become its PM now and then.

So this is purely an imagination.

But my country India is a democracy and every citizen has a right to dream or to have an aspiration on how its PM ought to be.

While watching the present and past PMs at times such thoughts forcefully come into the minds of some citizens of this country.

I am no exception. Such thoughts do come to my mind as well.

I would like to share some of my present thoughts on how I would behave, had I been the PM of this country.

Had I been the PM of India, then :

- The first thing I would decide is that I would not become the PM for another term, because I hold the values of democracy high and would not use the power and position attained to cling on to it for ever. This way I make my self free to decide upon issues fearlessly and without bias.

- I would do all I can to see that I  push and pass such laws that make it impossible for immature, characterless and incompetent persons get a chance to be the PM after me.

- I would push and promote economic policies that would promote unemployment levels in the country to come to naught and the average incomes at the lowest levels to reach sufficiently high for the people to lead a decent life as a dignified citizen. I would encourage and honour all business entities who help the nation in this aspect.

- I would push and promote such laws and rules that honour the rights and privileges of each and every citizen of the country, honestly. I would ensure that the ministers discharge their responsibilities earnestly and are accountable for their actions.

- I would ensure that governments are doing only those activities which are for non-profit and welfare of the nation. All profit making businesses shall be controlled by companies set up in accordance with the companies act. Government owned companies shall be run on a no-profit no-loss basis and such companies or organizations shall be only in those areas where it is not desirable and feasible for non-government  entities to operate.

- I would push and promote laws that ensure education services a business as well as a governmental responsibility, depending upon the demographic situation. The laws and rules shall be such that no eligible citizen is denied education for want of money. All educational institutions that are making surplus funds shall be required to share 90% of their surplus for promoting education for the underprivileged.

- I would push and promote a differential corporate taxation system that ensure lower taxation for those companies that spend their substantial profits towards business expansion, research and welfare measures.

- I would establish a law that makes it the government's responsibility to ensure free and essential education, medical treatment and funeral for all wanting citizens whose incomes are below the national average.

- I would reduce bureaucratic controls on business to the lowest and push a law that prevents the states to pass laws that are detrimental to business growth.

- I would facilitate the rules that would make the distribution of national income between the centre and the states in accordance with an acceptable economic formula.

- I would give utmost priority to enhance infrastructure and other facilities to all government offices and establishments including the courts.

- I would ensure that the defence spending of the country is limited to a percentage of the GDP not exceeding that of the first 5 most populous countries of the world. I would also ensure that imports on defence technology , production and procurements is a minimum and on a declining trend.

- I would push and establish such laws that make it mandatory for all private and public establishments to publish their key performance information on their websites accurately and consistently.

- I would ensure that the laws regarding land are revised to enable all round progress in a reasonable time frame. Together with this rural and urban land ceiling would be implemented universally on a pan India basis adopting logical standards. I would also promote modernization of countries land records with modern technology which would eliminate litigations and enable smooth transactions. I would also make such laws that empower the government to take control of all excess and unutilized land and promulgate a development oriented land use policy.

- I would take up law reformation on top priority to simplify the Indian jurisprudence benchmarking it with the best in the world.

- I would ensure that me and my ministers are available in our respective offices for at least 75 % of the time and will not undertake tours and globe trotting unless it is extremely essential.

- I would ensure that all the MPs are made board members of national statutory organisations for better peoples participation in governance and would push to pass laws to this effect.

- I would make it a point of hearing the peoples voices on a regular basis by reading the news papers and the media and never ever depend on my advisers to screen what I should hear and read.


There are much more.

I am sure many of you from this country would also have such thoughts on how your PM or government should function or how your PM should prioritize his / her actions.

Would you like to share some ?


At least that might help a PM in the making !

[More Blogs Here !     and   Here ! ]

Pre-paid Mobile Phone Connection: This is how Airtel does it !

To be very frank I used to be an admirer of this company named Airtel, a Bharti Communication venture, which was a sort of pioneering private organization which brought about the telecommunication revolution in India, breaking the monopoly of the Government of India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Prior to this revolution, the telephone instrument used to be called the P&T phone, an acronym for the Post and Telecommunication department, and was usually a black ebonite moulding with some electro-mechanical things in it.

Those in the government had made such rules and regulations that it was not even possible for any one to use a phone instrument having a different color. Having a telephone connection at home and office used to be a status symbol which only those well connected could manage. The members of the parliament (MP) had the special privilege of recommending any one a telephone connection! A telephone connection used to cost a few thousands of rupees at a time when the average salary of a government officer was much lesser!

With the opening up of the telecommunication sector by the government of India in the Nineties suddenly proved that India was not a poor country any more as it used to be thought earlier. In just two decades time ever since, India has over a billion telephone connections, an average of a phone for every citizen!

The big crowds that you see any where in any retail shop in India is perhaps in the foreign liquor shops and in the mobile phone shops !

The post paid telephones were the order of the yester years. But now it is the era of the pre-paid mobile or cell phones.

In the telephone business the old P&T is bifurcated into a few PSU companies called the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) which serves on a pan India basis and the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) which takes care of the telecom business of the metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi etc. The arm that dealt the international communication business was made Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) which was later sold out and now owned by the private Tata group.

There are scores of private players in this big business. One of the pioneers was Airtel. Then there are companies called Idea, Vodaphone, Tata Docomo, Aircel, Hutch, Reliance, etc.

Migration of this business from the earlier monopolistic regime to the present open market system has been mired in controversies and corruptions of very high order and the details of which are not very much understood by the common man. 

In the earlier days the DoT officers holding the Indian Telecom Service (ITS) title used to manage this business. Now personnel of varying competencies and calibre manage the show of the private players. Many of the personnel that the telecom companies have in the field offices are employees of franchisees and not direct employees of the companies concerned.

Both in the government sector and in the private sector, it is not very easy for the common man to meet a responsible officer representing these companies. In fact, the responsibility of selling their products and services have been outsourced to such an extent in these companies that the pre-paid mobile connection means purchase of a small electronic chip called the SIM with a unique telephone number which can be inserted to your mobile set for activating the connection by the respective telecom operator company.

India of late is a country where internal warfare of extremist groups sponsored by both internal and external terror groups take place here and there most unexpectedly. Such a situation has made the government pulling its strings to tighten the telecom companies to ensure keeping records of  proper identities of their customers, especially those who are pre-paid mobile connection users. The logic behind such a move is to prevent individuals belonging to the extremists organizations using their pre-paid mobile handsets for their acts anonymously.

So the government rightfully has put the onus on the mobile companies to ensure the identity of the SIM purchasers.

The SIM cards are offered for sale by small time vendors and shops who displays the logos of the telecom companies prominently advertising the SIMs that are available with them for sale.

A customer who wants to get a connection goes to any one of these shops and ask for a SIM of his desired operator of choice. The vendor takes out a set of SIMs well packed with the connection number displayed outside the cover.

The customer selects his SIM. He has to then fill up an application form which is available with the vendor. For his convenience, he only has to sign at one or two places, and the vendor or his agent does the remaining filling up for him later. That is fine for the purchaser, because he should be well educated to get it filled up by himself. More over the shop from where he has purchased the SIM does not have such facilities for the purchaser to sit down conveniently and fill up the form!

Together with the application form, the customer has to give self signed photocopies of an identity proof document. There is a big list of such documents which are accepted as per the directives of the government. How to get an identity proof originally is a thing which is yet to be decided in this country ! Because, any identity document to be made requires providing some other identity proof. Then he has to give a document in proof his address. Now this is a ticklish issue. Many of the documents that he had given for the identity has also some address on them. But those addresses may not be the same located in the place where he is now purchasing the SIM, if he happened to be a person who keeps changing the residences due to his profession.So the address proof has to be a land line telephone bill of the BSNL ( how can he have this because this BSNL will ask for a address proof!) any such thing. But for a person of a changing job nature, none of this can be made without some original address certification by some authority. [In this connection it would be interesting to see these blogs also : 1. The Unique Identity Crisis of India !  2. Unique Identity to All: the Simple Thing to Do ]

Now coming back to my experience of getting a pre-paid mobile connection in Ranchi, the capital city of the meneral rich and Naxal infested Jharkhand state of India. I came to this city nearly an year ago, after staying in the near by state of Chhattisgarh for three decades. My PSU employer wanted my services here now. The company provided me an official mobile connection operated by the PSU telecom company, BSNL. After a couple of months, I thought of having another mobile connection for my private use. So I went to a shop near to my residence, which displayed the logos of many mobile telecom operators. The shop owner told me the mandatory requirements for getting the SIM. I should have an identity proof and and address proof and a photograph.

For the identity part, I had many things with me. I had a passport, a PAN card issued by the Income Tax Department, a driving license issued the Transport Authority of my previous state of residence and my company's photo identity card. Except the PAN card all had my address also recorded, but those addresses were all where I lived before and not my current residence- the current residence at that time being my rented accommodation.

The shop keeper explained that any of the identity proof are okay, but for the residence proof none are acceptable. Then he suggested to have a notarized rent agreement for my rented accommodation. Fortunately I had that and all documents were submitted happily and I was issued the SIM of Airtel.

The SIM costed just about Rs.50. ( approximately one US dollar). Due to the cut throat competition and large scale volumes the connection costed just pea nuts !

So happily I went home with the SIM to be inserted in my new mobile hand set. The shop keeper had told me that the SIM would get activated by the Airtel company after they receive the documents. And I waited for that moment.

To my surprise, nothing happened for some days. I kept enquiring with the shop keeper. At last, after a lapse of about two weeks, he informed me that the company officials did not approve my address proof ! I asked the shop keeper to return my documents. Though he could not give it back, thankfully he returned the Rs.50 that was taken for the SIM. Since the pre-paid mobile connection was not such an important thing for me, I just left the thing there.

After a few months, my employer allotted me my official residence in the company's own township in a prime location in the city, a well known address of its own. Now I had my CPSU company's quarters allotment letter as the proof of residence at last.

With these documents, BSNL was happy to give me a pre-paid SIM which was activated in no time. BSNL being a PSU was now working much more efficiently than the private players. Thanks to the competition that the latter created !

Recently, I thought of having another pre-paid mobile connection. This time I went to the shop owner who got me the BSNL SIM connection. Since I had the BSNL, I thought of trying another operator and opted for Airtel once again forgetting my previous bad experience. At least this time I was pretty confident about the address proof.  I gave him the same kind of documents I gave for getting the BSNL connection !

Fortunately, the connection got activated and I used it for nearly a week. In between I recharged it twice. Then all of a sudden, I got a SMS on the mobile asking to meet my shop owner in connection with the documents. Since the shop was near to my residence I went to him. He casually said to forget it. It is a common practice of this Airtel fellows, he informed.

Then to my surprise, in the next day, the mobile went dead. I approached the shop keeper, my only contact in this connection! This time he gave me back all the documents with an unsigned checklist with a tick mark on the column marked 'un acceptable address proof'. While all the documents had the signature and rubber stamp of the vendor who sold the SIM in the first place with due attestation of the verifications, the checklist returned did not have any such thing. It did not say who is returning the same or on whose behalf. It even did not bear the Airtel logo. Obviously, the company had outsourced this function to some local fellows who are either not competent or arrogant with their whimsical 'power' of deciding who can get an Airtel connection in Jharkhand.

This time I decided to do some research on this. Through google search I came to know that this kind of complaints are frequently happening with Airtel .

Just for a curiosity, I wanted to know how this company disposed their customer complaints.

So I found out their customer care e-mail from the Internet and wrote about this to :
airtelpresence@airtel.in

I had clearly stated all the things regarding this new Airtel Prepaid SIM .

I had given my contact details and all such things that they would need to have a proper enquiry.

The next day a lady contacted me on my cell phone. She talked about the complaint which I had. She seemed understanding the problem.

She was apologetic for the whole incident. But her solution was that I should find out their office located in this city and meet some one there to resolve the issue. Perhaps to listen to their new demands! I do not know.

Having purchased the SIM from the local shop, I did not feel like spending my time and energy again to go in search of some offices of this company for making an argument with their incompetent staff once again to have the connection restored.

When there are many options left to the customers, no one would like to do such a thing.

But had this company cared really for the customer, they would have seen that a legitimate customer is not lost, even if that individual customer is not worth much for them taken solely. That is what customer care is all about.

But for many of the Indian companies, this is what the employees are not taught well.

And after some time of their existence, the employees start making rules of their own, pulling down the company that provided them their bread and butter for some years !

Unless the top brass of the companies take special interest, such things keep happening in all companies, not only with this Airtel.

Before concluding this, I remember how some similar instances of customer grievances that one of the prominent private banking company of India handled. The top management of this bank deliberately chose to be a six sigma company with regard to customer complaints, not just in words, but in action. The effect is that now most of the businessmen for whom banking transactions are very important for sustaining their businesses, chose to be the customers of this bank, for they knew that the bank would solve their problems if at all something wrong happens. In less than a decade, this bank became a consistently profit making venture and the number one in private banking sector in India.

That is the importance of customer care.

But when companies begin to forget it, the stage is set for them to perish !

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ]

Observations on the Working Styles of Two Indian Public Sector Chief Executive Officers !

What I am going to narrate here are two episodes that happened during some years ago during my service as an engineer in a large Indian Public Sector Company. The purpose of narrating this is to highlight the importance a Chief Executive Officer in making a difference  to the performance of the business organization. Those who are capable of understanding can very well differentiate the leadership traits that made the difference to the organization on a long term perspective from some apparently negligible actions of theirs.

For obvious reasons, I would not name the persons or the organization.

This may be taken as a real life case study in management !

The company is a large metallurgical process industry (to be more specific, a large integrated steel plant) employing nearly 50,000 people, of which nearly 2500 are qualified engineers. The engineers employed by the company are from various engineering disciplines as far as their educational backgrounds are concerned. The company's recruitment policy is such that it selects fresh engineers from the academic institutions on a pan India basis based on a stringent recruitment process. Such engineers are placed in the technical management cadre of the company. It is from this cadre that the company later draws its Chief Executives and top management personnels.

Though it is a government owned Public Sector Unit (PSU), the promotions and career growth prospects in this company are not similar to the government service. In the Indian government service, seniority is the major determiner in deciding promotions of an officer from a particular cadre. Though the Indian PSUs initially followed the government rules, the career rules in them kept on changing to their convenience when the government began vesting their Boards with more and more autonomy. As such, the Indian PSUs do not have any uniform career policy, except that they follow some mandates from the government in deciding the pay and perks of the employees.

Now let us come back to the two chief executives of this PSU. For convenience let us call them Mr.X and Mr. Y. The former was the Chief Executive Officer (CXO) of the same company more than a decade earlier to the latter. Both of them joined the company as fresh management trainee recruits, Mr X joining the company during its formative years and Mr Y joining the company later during its prime performance years.

Mr. X had his education from a premier national institute while Mr. Y had his engineering education from an institute not of that prominence. Both these gentlemen incidentally hailed from the same Indian state. Linguistically and culturally they had similar backgrounds. Mr. X was a metallurgical engineer while Mr.Y was an electrical engineer. During the initial two decades of their career both worked as first line executives in two major production departments of the same company.

Mr.X had an opportunity to work in another PSU in the General Manager and Director levels for a few years before he was selected and placed as the Chief Executive of his parent company while Mr Y worked in the same company , though he held different responsibilities in a few other departments.

When Mr. X took charge of as the CXO, he came after a gap of nearly a decade and the younger generations of officers never knew him. Most of his batch mates and seniors where now in senior levels in the company holding various positions but subordinate to him. The company just at that time had completed a major expansion plan and was just waiting to get the benefits of the massive production capacity expansion. Unfortunately, many of the new production units were failing to produce in the acceptable levels due to many technical problems of a new kind which the company never faced earlier in the old production units.

For example, the new Steel Melting Shop with latest steel production facilities was not able to sustain its production because of a technical snag on its gas cleaning facility. The latter came up with latest technology and was supplied by a reputed European company. Though the plant had been commissioned, the production of steel could not pick up because the gas cleaning plants would break down so soon. Unless the company produce the crude steel in this department it cannot possibly make the saleable steel in the other production departments! Capital employed by the company in the billions was not making any returns !

The company had trained its operation and maintenance engineers in the new technology by sending scores of them to the foreign countries from where the technology was procured. Besides, the experts from the foreign suppliers and the consultants were all breaking their heads to solve the problem.

But the problem was not getting solved. More and more experts were requisitioned from other countries as well and their suggestions were getting tried one by one. But the problem remained unsolved.

The CXO was spending hours daily in meetings with high level Indian and foreign teams to resolve the technical problem. But nothing was happening.

While the big efforts were on, the CXO did another thing. He devoted some time to discuss the issue with some of his personal friends and earnestly requested them to find any one in his large organization who could be of some help. That informal request from the CXO caused a silent 'people' search within the organization, not necessarily connected with the problem. The effect was that one day, my boss requested me ( a very junior level engineer at that time and not connected in any way to steel production) to visit the new Steel Melting Shop and study the problem independently and suggest some solution if I could.

So, I visited the new shop. I knew none there. There were big actions every where in the huge production shop which was built and commissioned just recently. There were high level 'experts' and engineers from many countries in dynamic activities trying to find out some solution to the problem. Some actions of modifications were going on as suggested by some experts. The plant was not on production mode !

With difficulty, by spending some time in understanding the process and the technology by glaring at the massive pieces of equipment connected by massive pipelines and cables and by discussing with some shop personnel here and there, I studied the problem. I thought about the whole process and the systems with a rational but unbiased mind.

Then it struck me. I found the possible reason for the gas cleaning plant failing frequently ! I could also guess the possible solution ! One of the huge pipes was getting chocked with a rock like formation which was not prone to conventional cleaning within days the plant is put to service. And the chocking location was different every time.

The solution what I found involved replacing a length of pipe of the gas cleaning plant with a smaller diameter pipe. But my predicament was that an external expert agency had also identified the problem to the same pipe and they had recommended for going for a higher size pipe. In fact one higher size replacement had been tried without any positive result and the same agency had suggested for a still higher size and work was in progress for effecting this new replacement. My technical logic on the other hand , involved changing the pipe to a much lower size than was originally designed by the foreign technology supplier.

When I told this to my boss, he discouraged me. He even challenged my knowledge and experience. How can an young Indian engineer could possibly solve such a 'big' problem so easily, that so many teams of foreign experts could not do so far ?

That was his simple logic !

But perhaps due to some other reasons he somehow decided to forward my suggestion note to higher ups. As the problem was so serious to the company, my suggestion somehow reached the Mr.X, the then CXO, who instead of throwing it to the dust bin, instructed the next in command to personally discuss the matter with me and proceed to implement it if I was found confident !

Soon, the big bosses of the company came to meet me. Some were apprehensive, but some others were willing to buy my suggestion. Soon the CXO took the decision in my favour and ordered to implement my suggestion under my guidance. The ongoing work (implementing the suggestion of the external expert agency) was stopped and the work as suggested by me was taken up, instead.

The work got completed and the plant was started. Though there was an apprehension from many people that the gas cleaning plant would fail in the first attempt itself due to the drastic change from its initial design, they proved wrong. 

The problem was solved for ever and soon the new shop began producing steel and production picked up momentum soon after. This one success catapulted my reputation as an engineer and soon I was recognized by the CXO and the top management team as an expert of the organization who could be consulted for other problems as well.

Years later, Mr. Y became the CXO. We knew each other personally. The same company  was in peak production when he took charge as the Chief. But now the issue was maintaining the plant in that performance levels. The equipment and the people are to be kept in top form ! Unlike the former CXO, this individual was a popular figure and he had personal touch with many junior and senior level engineers and officers of the company before he was elevated to the top post.

But when he became the CXO, he decided it the best for him to keep aloof from all. Perhaps he thought that would be the best policy to maintain his 'gravity' as the Chief !

He created a large CXO Secretariat filled with a large team of officers to assist him. No one was normally allowed to meet the CXO, unless approved by his Secretariat.

He was a person in regular talking terms with me before he got elevated to the top positions. He was  from a management trainee batch a couple of years senior to mine. But professionally we belonged to a different technical discipline. But he knew about me and the areas where I was considered in the company as an expert for the past many years.

When he took charge as the CXO, a major plan was going on to modernize a major production facility of the company for crude iron making with massive investments. This  involved some major changes in the technology which were proposed by some external consultants and suppliers.

While the plans were discussed at the CXO level, Mr.Y felt that one the new technologies which was being proposed need to be checked up for its suitability by me, as he knew vaguely the experience and expertize that I had in this field. Perhaps he asked some one in his Secretariat to get me involved but they did not do it that time. His management style had somehow made his Secretariat capable of deciding what the Chief should see and decide !

Sometime later, when we met accidentally in another forum, he tried hard to discuss the matter with me, but he could not spell out the technical issue properly as was not able to recollect it fully.

The plans of modernization went ahead and got implemented and the some commissioning bottlenecks were experienced for the newly modernized facility. Again  in some other top decision making forums Mr Y desired that I should be called and my opinion should be taken before one of the new systems which came up as a new modification is actually put to use. This time perhaps he desired it because of the difficulties felt in getting this new facility commissioned together with the larger production facility that got renovated. Again none actually took him serious, though I was informally informed of this development by another top officer of the company who is privy to the high level meetings chaired by Mr.Y.

I was not involved in the said project in any way. Yet, I felt that this was some thing important and I should have a look in to it for the greater interest of my company. So, I studied the whole issue independently and found that the new facility which was going to be incorporated was to create a greater technical problem later, seriously affecting the plant life and productivity. Technically, the new system which was going to be installed was not at all required and if incorporated as such was going to cause a major bottleneck after some time, instead of having the benefits as envisaged.

So, I met the top officer who communicated the issue to me and informed him of the consequences the company would have and gave my technical advice of not incorporating this new system. But this officer informed me that it was such an issue that he would not be in a position to inform Mr Y. He advised me to meet the Chief Executive, if possible. So I made attempts to meet him, but his Secretariat denied me permission by citing various reasons of pre-occupation and busy schedules of Mr.Y. It is to be remembered that they knew our previous relations and about the desire that he expressed to get my technical views.

Then the last thing left to me was sending a direct message to him. I did that too, hoping that the persons in his Secretariat would judge that an important one and bring that to his notice.

Apparently that did not happen. Shortly, the new facility was commissioned. I remember telling a few of my colleagues about the blunder made and the possible failure of the production facility in the near future.

It happened the way I thought. The iron making facility which was renovated by spending huge amounts have been spending millions again and again to off set the problems that kept developing. Major investments are being done and productivity is affected adversely. The facility which was created to produce crude iron trouble free for at least a couple of future decades is failing every now and then. Much money and efforts are spent to keep it running with frequent shut downs and  repairs.

During the short period of about two years as the CXO, many apparently invisible acts of Mr.X made the company fare very well in the next many years. His acts had a long term positive effect. I have knowledge of many such things and in a few other cases also I was personally involved.

Mr.Y remained in the seat of the CXO for nearly four years. He got a good working company to manage. But the way he performed his function as the chief executive mostly caused long term negative impact on the company. Though he had left the position, his style of management had set in a negative slide for the company.

What was the personality trait that made it possible for Mr.X to effect a better future for the company?

What was the personality trait of Mr.Y that caused the company to slide down ?

Which One Came First - the Egg or the Hen ?

Which one originated first, the egg or the hen?

Even I do not know for sure. It could be either. Such a situation in the Hindi speaking belt of India is commonly called the 'Anda Pahle-Murgi Pahle' situation.

Since this puzzle has been troubling the minds of the Indians for centuries, it has become very difficult for an Indian to accept something as original.

No Indian authority accepts any thing declared by an Indian citizen as such. It has to be certified by a great super personality who is above the citizen himself, however great the latter may be.

Now let me come to the specifics.

For example, let me cite an example of my friend whose predicament I witnessed today some time earlier. He is a top level officer in a large India government company and a civil servant by the definitions given in the constitution of India. But that civil servant definition now only applies for the purpose of punishing him for some misdeeds and not for any other purpose whatsoever.

This CPSU officer and those like him cannot be of any small help to the common public in any way even to the extent of certifying or attesting some very common documents that some other authorities of the government keep demanding from the common public even for very mundane things.

Because he is not a gazetted officer of the government ! By definition as per the legacy of the British administrative system, a gazetted officer is an officer of the government whose authority and position is published in the government gazette. Neither me nor my friend nor many like us have not even seen a gazette in our life time. It is such a rare kind of a document which is privy to some privileged people only. We might be doing many things for the country but those are not that important to be gazetted !

In the days when I was a student in the schools, I remember my plight to locate this 'super authority' of an officer called the 'gazetted officer' who is the government's agent to certify or attest copies of my mark lists and such other documents for submitting my applications to various institutions for higher studies.

Fortunately in the villages, the people knew the gazetted agents and representatives of the government authority, though they were a rare breed. Through that experience, I came to know that any government servant who drew a basic pay over Rs. 550/- per month ($ 11)  at that time was a gazetted officer ! Even with at this low pay standards, they were not very common and approachable ! The ones I learnt as approachable to some extent for me at that time were the doctor in a government health centre near our village and the head master of a government high school. You needed some high recommendation and approach to get your documents attested by these officers, but in the village that was easier than in the cities. That is what I learnt later.

These officers used to charge a fee for the attestation. It is believed that this amount is a legitimate one for them, though I am not sure about it even now.

Facing such difficulties in my life, I was thinking that I would never be a problem to the common people and instead I would help them out in such situations. But alas ! I could not. Though I became an officer of a central government company, drawing much more basic pay than many such gazetted officers, I later learnt that my position is not 'gazetted' and I am not empowered to 'help' the common man! In fact I am also a common helpless man like them !

Now imagine the situation when we were living in a city of population near a million where most of the officers connected with government are employees of our government owned company known otherwise as a central public sector undertaking or CPSU and none are 'gazetted'.

Imagine our predicament when we were running from pillar to post to locate a small time gazetted officer any where to 'attest' the documents of our own children ! I remember our children's pitiful looks on us as they learnt that we were such 'useless' officers !

With the times, the government bureaucrats slowly consolidated their powers in the hands of a few as more and more government services getting abolished or re-established or privatized.

When the governments, both the at the states and at the federal level, make laws and rules they seemed to make it with many loop holes, making the system prone to further litigation and interventions by the courts making the democratic system of India a complex one with no one in command and many in command all at the same time!

The good for nothing gimmick of attestation exercise also stands in a confused situation in India. Many authorities ask for attestation and equal number do not ask for it. Those who ask for it do not seem to understand the reason for which they demand it. They just framed the rules, copying the rules from some old rules from where the clause of 'attestation by a gazetted officer' also 'inadvertantly' got in. If you ask them, perhaps they would not be in a position to identify the 'gazetted officers' in any locality.

My good friend's son is an engineer working in a good company in Bangalore. He thought of studying further and taking a post graduate degree or diploma in management. For that he has to write a management aptitude test (MAT) conducted by a body 'authorized' to conduct it. Now this body has perhaps done every thing online and at the last minute demanded the poor chap to come to the test centre with his admission card duly filled in and pasted with his photograph and attested by a 'gazetted officer'. In Bangalore, he failed to locate a man or woman with that label who can perhaps help him and who possesses a rubber stamp and ink pad ready to 'attest'.

So he sent an SOS to his top officer dad sitting 4000 km away ! Fortunately there are so many 'gazetted' officers who move around too frequently flashing red beacon lights on their vehicles in the city we live which is capital of a state of India.

But who can dare to stop them to attest ?

Even if they are stopped will they do it ?

If some one dares to meet them in their offices will they be there ?

Now why at all the poor boy and the thousands like him need their photographs to be attested by someone who does not even know him or them?

The boy is original or the photograph?

Can you not devise a simpler method of making a foolproof system of conducting an aptitude test ?

Or for that matter any such things ?

But then please don't ask these questions in India.

Perhaps these things are devised for testing the ability of the candidates in locating rare and difficult persons of India. Who knows ?

If there is a will, there is a way.  

That is what they say!