Does Advancement of Science Possibly Enhance Our Faith in God?

The More Advances in Science, the More Your Faith in God!

Being an engineering professional, I have been involved with the design and installation of large process plants especially in the metallurgical and chemical processing fields. I have got opportunities to witness ordinary folks viewing those plant installations with awe. There are even people who ask me how such things are made.

It is not always possible to make them understand, unless they themselves possess some essential knowledge in engineering and have some IQ level to grasp those. Even if I explained the ordinary folks all the details, they might not get any thing!

In a similar way, I too view with awe the engineering marvels that are created by engineers having advanced knowledge and IQ level than me. Even if they try to explain and teach me about the details of those creations, I may not understand much. Because, I do not possess the basic IQ level and knowledge level that are  essential to grasp those.

Engineering is practical science and there are scientists turned engineers and engineer turned scientists who keep using their brains and skills to make progress in science.

But engineers are also humans with limited mind capacities in varying degrees. The average human mind capacity is nowhere near to those of the highest types.

It is also not possible for an  individual human being to be a master of all trades with full knowledge in all things. Hence, pooling of knowledge and team work are essential for everyone including engineers and scientists to accomplish tasks.

So for all of us, who lack the knowledge and IQ levels to the desired degree, even humanly created things appear as magical marvels! It is also not possible for us to visualize how these things are made by those who created such marvels on our earth!

We use the personal computers, the android phones, the internet, travel in air, live in high rise buildings, read about the discoveries in science and listen to our scientists speak about their theories without really understanding much about the details of these. 

We might be contributing a bit to all these, but yet, we hardly understand the whole thing. It is true with even the Chief Executive of the company that manufacture the PCs or the android phones!

We do not understand it does not mean that others also do not understand. While we are ignorant, there are others who are not so ignorant. On the other hand, while we are knowledgeable, there are others who cannot know.

Some of our scientists try to understand about materials. They have found out that all materials are essentially made of the same kinds of particles. Yet, the elements and the molecules are all wonderfully different! Just as the buildings we make with bricks and steel, the materials too are very different, though made of just one fundamental particle (the god's particle or what is being told as the ultimaton!) 

I have been told by some superior beings that 100 ultimatons constitute the electron. Of course, this aspect is not yet clearly understood by our particle physicists! Perhaps, they are in the process of learning that.

Some of our scientists are now well versed in the electronic configuration of atoms of elements. I have been informed by some superior beings that only 100 natural elements are possible on earth. They wrote it in a book which got published in 1955 at a time when our scientific community was just in the process of realizing the basics of particle physics. Unfortunately, this book could not be labelled as a science research publication because the book contained information that was already known to some superior beings. 

Our scientists too work on the principles of democracy and democracy do form politics and science is not above politics. That is because we have varying degrees of mind capacities! Hence, in such matters, we cannot arrive at any majority supported conclusions. Yet, most of the world's renowned scientists had immense faith in the existence of God!

Let me quote a few statements from the book* I mentioned above that talks about ultimatons and the atoms of elements:

While the space charge of universal force is homogeneous and undifferentiated, the organization of evolved energy into matter entails the concentration of energy into discrete masses of definite dimensions and established weight—precise gravity reaction. 

Local or linear gravity becomes fully operative with the appearance of the atomic organization of matter. Preatomic matter becomes slightly gravity responsive when activated by X ray and other similar energies, but no measurable linear-gravity pull is exerted on free, unattached, and uncharged electronic-energy particles or on unassociated ultimatons. 

Ultimatons function by mutual attraction, responding only to the circular Paradise-gravity pull. Without linear-gravity response they are thus held in the universal space drift. Ultimatons are capable of accelerating revolutionary velocity to the point of partial antigravity behavior, but they cannot, independent of force organizers or power directors, attain the critical escape velocity of deindividuation, return to the puissant-energy stage.

In nature, ultimatons escape the status of physical existence only when participating in the terminal disruption of a cooled-off and dying sun. The ultimatons, unknown on your world, earth, slow down through many phases of physical activity before they attain the revolutionary-energy prerequisites to electronic organization. Ultimatons have three varieties of motion: mutual resistance to cosmic force, individual revolutions of antigravity potential, and the intra-electronic positions of the one hundred mutually inter-associated ultimatons. 

Mutual attraction holds one hundred ultimatons together in the constitution of the electron; and there are never more nor less than one hundred ultimatons in a typical electron. The loss of one or more ultimatons destroys typical electronic identity, thus bringing into existence one of the ten modified forms of the electron. Ultimatons do not describe orbits or whirl about in circuits within the electrons, but they do spread or cluster in accordance with their axial revolutionary velocities, thus determining the differential electronic dimensions.

This same ultimatonic velocity of axial revolution also determines the negative or positive reactions of the several types of electronic units. The entire segregation and grouping of electronic matter, together with the electric differentiation of negative and positive bodies of energy-matter, result from these various functions of the component ultimatonic interassociation. Each atom is a trifle over 1/100,000,000^th of an inch in diameter, while an electron weighs a little more than 1/2,000^th of the smallest atom, hydrogen. The positive proton, characteristic of the atomic nucleus, while it may be no larger than a negative electron, weighs almost two thousand times more.

If the mass of matter should be magnified until that of an electron equaled one tenth of an ounce, then were size to be proportionately magnified, the volume of such an electron would become as large as that of the earth. If the volume of a proton—eighteen hundred times as heavy as an electron—should be magnified to the size of the head of a pin, then, in comparison, a pin’s head would attain a diameter equal to that of the earth’s orbit around  the sun. 

The formation of all matter is on the order of the solar system. There is at the center of every minute universe of energy a relatively stable, comparatively stationary, nuclear portion of material existence. This central unit is endowed with a threefold possibility of manifestation. Surrounding this energy center there whirl, in endless profusion but in fluctuating circuits, the energy units which are faintly comparable to the planets encircling the sun of some starry group like your own solar system.

Within the atom the electrons revolve about the central proton with about the same comparative room the planets have as they revolve about the sun in the space of the solar system. There is the same relative distance, in comparison with actual size, between the atomic nucleus and the inner electronic circuit as exists between the inner planet, Mercury and your sun. 

The electronic axial revolutions and their orbital velocities about the atomic nucleus are both beyond the human imagination, not to mention the velocities of their component ultimatons. The positive particles of radium fly off into space at the rate of ten thousand miles a second, while the negative particles attain a velocity approximating that of light. The local universes are of decimal construction.

There are just one hundred distinguishable atomic materializations of space-energy in a dual universe; that is the maximum possible organization of matter in your universe region. These one hundred forms of matter consist of a regular series in which from one to one hundred electrons revolve around a central and relatively compact nucleus. It is this orderly and dependable association of various energies that constitutes matter. 

Not every world will show one hundred recognizable elements at the surface, but they are somewhere present, have been present, or are in process of evolution. Conditions surrounding the origin and subsequent evolution of a planet determine how many of the one hundred atomic types will be observable. The heavier atoms are not found on the surface of many worlds. Even on your world earth, the known heavier elements manifest a tendency to fly to pieces, as is illustrated by radium behavior.

If I say that the book from which the above is quoted is authored by superior beings, you would perhaps agree with me, on the assumption that they were superior humans. Because, you are aware of superior humans. But if I say, these authors are not human beings,but invisible divine beings, you would laugh at me. That is because, you do not have any experience with such beings. You may not be an atheist. Yet, you would laugh at the thought of the so called angels or devas  writing a book. That is not because such beings are an imagination of some people, but because of your lack of knowledge and experience in that area.

But then all aspects of science are not known to all people. All things theorized by the scientists cannot be verified. Yet, we consider science as infallible. We may have extreme faith in God. We may accept religious faith. But it is difficult for us to coordinate our spiritual thoughts and beliefs with our scientific thoughts and beliefs. Is this too one of our human mind limitation?

But I am an optimist. I have critically examined the knowledge revealed by the book I mentioned above. I have logically come to the conclusion that the book cannot be a fraudulent work of clever humans as in the case with several other books that exist for our scrutiny. And due to that, I know the revealed knowledge that are provided in the above mentioned book are indeed true. On the basis of that truth, I have to be an optimist only. I have enough reason to believe that our earth is heading towards more progress and advanced civilization and not to ultimate destruction!

Being privy (not a situation deliberately made for me; you too could be in that position!) to the advanced truths that the book provides me, I have got an opportunity to understand some essential information about the purpose for which the worlds in our universe and those who live in those are created. 

You would only cry out in desperation only if you are taken blindfolded to an unknown destination. In that case you would not enjoy the time of your trip and you would remain as anxious as possible!

On the other hand, if you know more about the trip and if you are not blind folded, you would perhaps enjoy your trip fully and would remain in anticipation of the great things ahead. 

So with the aid of the superior knowledge that I gained from the book, I am optimistic about the merger of science and religion in the future. When our scientific and spiritual knowledge advance, we are going to have much determined faith in God. A faith that is definitely not prejudiced or  immersed in superstitions!

* Click Here to Know More!

Why It is Difficult for Government Institutions in a Democracy to Become Pioneers in New Technologies?

A couple of days ago, two senior level executives from a new foreign equipment manufacturer visited me. Their purpose was to introduce a few of the latest innovative process plant equipment that their company has successfully designed in the recent years. A few companies in the world who are keen to take advantage of modern innovations have already installed those in their factories and are taking advantage of those equipment.

As a matter of every day life for those involved with the engineering and technology business, this is nothing very unique. As for every business, there are consumers and suppliers in the engineering and technology business as well.

Engineers working in engineering and technology oriented line of business may have to work as a supplier or a consumer either at the same time or at different occasions.

Inside an Indian Public Manufacturing Facility-It is Too

Difficult for New Technologies To Be Adopted Quickly!

Researching, designing and commercializing new innovative machines, equipment and systems are the core business for some. Taking advantage of those new innovations for improving their own business activity is equally important for some others.

Humans of the advanced type are inherently innovative. They take advantage of the opportunities and innovate. In business innovations are dynamic process and is an essential requisite for existence. Those who fail to innovate perish or go out of business after some time.

Unfortunately all humans are not intellectually equal. All are at varying abilities at any given time as of now. Hence, there is the danger of the intellectually higher order humans keeping their lower order cousins perpetually under their command and disposal. Remember, in the olden days, the physically stronger ones had been doing exactly the same.

Higher ability does not necessarily mean that they are also higher in their spiritual qualities such as love, compassion, justice and character. Thus, there is a potential danger of the characterless but cleverer types keeping the inferior types always at a disadvantage.

Present day democracy is in its nascent state of development. But it came in to existence after testing all other forms of government in the past. Though it is not perfect as of now, it is undoubtedly the best form of government that humans can have.

Democracy gives some powers to the majority of those intellectually inferior humans to checkmate the potential onslaught of the superior minorities among their lot.

Thus, all democratic governments  try to ensure a leveled playing ground for all players in all human activities, including business.

Monopolistic and restrictive trade practices are not encouraged as a result of this. 

Are you wondering why I have written all these?

I shall try to clarify it now. Suppose that some superior humans invented some new technology which is beneficial to others in several ways. This benefit is likely to cause a high demand for this new technology. The group who pioneered this could now exploit this situation fully to their advantage. They can monopolize it and charge a high premium from the users which would enhance their returns several times their legitimate cost of developing this technology.

Had they been people with human values, perhaps they would not have done so. But, as of now, we have more number of clever characterless people than intelligent humanists.

Thus democratic governments and governmental institutions adopt the widely accepted practice of tendering for acquiring any types of goods or services. Justified practices which give equal opportunity to all stakeholders are kept as the ideal. All these processes are subjected to various kinds of checks and audits for finding and preventing violations.

Inducements of various kinds are often practiced and tried by some unscrupulous players to circumvent the rules of tendering and get undue advantages. As the time passes, more and more information on the types of inducements are gained by others which results in more and more rules and regulations in the public tendering processes.

As a result of this, over the time, public procurement procedures by the tendering process become very complex to such a situation that it is no more easy for government institutions to procure some thing for public benefit in the right time and in the right manner.

Now let me come back to the case of the two business executives about whom I told in the beginning. No, doubt, their company has a technology which is unique and very useful for my organization. Perhaps, my organization, which is a governmental one, could benefit both directly and indirectly if this technology is implemented. There are tangible and intangible benefits.

But perhaps, going by the rules and regulations which have matured over the years, it would be extremely difficult for my organization to make use of this new innovation. The reason for this is because the new technology is almost unique that we may designate it as 'proprietary'. A proprietary technology or equipment has no competitors and any attempt to procure such things by any governmental organization can cause doubts and suspicions on any body who tries to favor it. Due to this, many public servants who are responsible for public procurement shy away from taking decisions that involve proprietary technology or systems or equipment. It is not that we do not have some solutions to this kind of a problem. It does exist. But regrettably, the rule book solutions are mostly impractical as of now.

Some three decades ago, when I was a young engineer, such a thing was not so difficult. We had more freedom to take decisions in favor of our organization. But the scams and unscrupulous acts of others have caused problems for those who are not of that kind as well. Perhaps the overall benefit to the organization stands more or less similar then and now, though for different reasons. Then it was due to the offsetting effect of bad acts of some over the good acts of some. Now it is the effect of the complexity of rules and regulations tying the hands the good people to take beneficial decisions for the overall benefit of the organization while the bad ones keep doing damaging acts either clandestinely or due to ignorance. 

Some time ago, I wrote a blog about the damaging effects of rules and regulations made under certain compulsions thoughtlessly and ignorantly.

The situation is similar in the case of public procurement procedures as it stands now. Unfortunately, we have a severe shortage of experienced people with all round expertise to draft rules and regulations which are both effective as well as simple.

This kind of a situation is not unique to any one nation or society. It is more or less the same everywhere, where democracy has taken roots.

Perhaps, we may have to wait till our individuals mature as wise citizens for matured nations to evolve. Till such time, we may have to live with such problems in varying degrees!

Is privatization a solution to this?

Would you like to share your views? 

Engineering Career in India : Some Aspects that are Often Overlooked !

One of the noticeable changes that occurred in India after it partially adopted the free market economic policies of the Nineteen Nineties, is the mushrooming of engineering colleges in every nook and corner of the country.

Yes, the Government of India has been giving fantastic sops to entrepreneurs to set up engineering colleges in the last few years by setting up the All India Council for Technical Education with statutory powers as delegated and implemented through the provisions of the AICTE Act of 1987 .

As per the published statistics of AICTE, the approved intake capacity of technical institutions to train youngsters in diploma, degree and post graduate degree courses in technical and management fields is going to be nearly 3.5 million in 2012-13 as compared to nearly 1.7 million that existed during 2008-09. A neat 100 % growth in four years ! [See the statistics of AICTE here !]

While this kind of a growth is justifiable on the basis of the number of engineers per thousand population in the developed nations like the USA, South Korea, Japan, etc there are very disturbing realities that cannot be overlooked whether or not the policy planners are willing to recognize it.

Setting up and engineering college or a management institution or any such technical institute is prima facie does not come under the purview of a business activity, though in reality it stands out as a profitable business at least for those who grabbed the opportunities in the very beginning.

Let us examine the process of setting up an engineering college and the likely incomes that are generated by such an institution.

The first step is registering a society or trust which is nothing but a registered association of people with the stated objectives as promoting technical education in the state or country or region. Essentially, there would be a few founder members who cleverly make the bye-laws of the society in such a way that the actual promoters control all issues of managing the society for ever. It is not necessary that the founder members have any knowledge in engineering. If the members are mostly from the same family or friend circle, it would be of much advantage. 

The next step is to mobilize the funds. A negligible sum comes from the membership contribution of the society members. The major sum comes as loans or donations made by the individuals to the society. They need to have at least 10-20 % of the total money required to set up the engineering college initially in the account of the society.

At present, setting up the engineering college initially would require about Rs 5 -10 Crores. Let us see how it works out:

         1. Purchase of about 5-10 acres of land away from the city limits ( the more the better) : Rs 2-5 Cr

         2. Costs of AICTE approval including security deposit:    Rs 1 Cr

         3. Buildings and other infrastructure            : Rs.2-4 Cr 

Now, how to initially finance this amount. Suppose that there are 20 members in the society. Each member contributing Rs.10 Lakhs would make Rs. 2 Cr. That is enough for the society to proceed with their project. The rest of the money could be raised through bank loans or other personal loans.

Initially the AICTE gives temporary green signal to proceed with the allocation of a few branches of engineering and the number of approved seats for each branch of engineering. The trend adopted by the new engineering colleges is to start courses on Computer and Information Technology, Electronics, Electrical, Communication which requires the minimum infrastructure and offer the maximum possibility of various course combinations. In any case, the start up institute gets permission to start 3-4 streams of graduate studies with an intake capacity of about 160 students in an year. 

If the college is fortunate, they get all their seats filled up. If not, they may get around 100 students. There is government patronage in getting the seats filled and in fixing the minimum course fees. As the minimum fee is government determined, the start up engineering college in the first year itself would be in a position to earn about a crore. They manage the finances by paying less initially to the faculty and the staff so that a surplus is generated in the first year itself. Every year the number of students increase to become the maximum in four years time. The revenue of the college (society) by way of student fees now surpasses more than fifty percent of the total money invested. In a few years time, the society cleanly comes out of all debts and would have good sums to spend in improving the infrastructure, beautification and other improvements with money accumulating in its accounts. The society members get back their loans with interest. If the college has survived a decade, the chances are that it becomes a good institute provided the management committee and the staff do their job well. 

Legally, the individual members of the Society which manages the college cannot have any personal gains from the profits of the college. But it should be remembered that the majority Indians do not have any mindset to do any philanthropic work. The simple logic for them is this: If there is no fayada (benefit) why should any one do some work ? So definitely fayada is there. But how this benefit is to be realized is not written in the laws and the statutes. So the unfair siphoning of funds accumulated by collection of hefty fees do take place. The methodologies are the same old practices that are adopted by people who are entrusted with powers to manage. It does not matter whether it is the industry, the NGO, the society or the government department ! Absence of the laws or inadequate check systems or pliable individuals all make these things easier. But at the same time the law enforcement agencies can target any one whimsically if they so desire. This gives the power centres ample scope to control things the way they want. In short, prevalence of arbitrariness becomes the way of governance in a country which claims to be democratic.

Now coming back to the fate of the millions of fresh engineering graduates whose parents spent nearly a million rupees for getting their engineering degrees ! There is no authentic data on how many of them find a useful job. Even then, private estimates by various agencies figure out unemployment levels as high as 30 % among engineering graduates of India. Remember, this is the situation of the present. You can well imagine the situation when the number of graduates double in the near future as planned by AICTE.

Even this unemployment figures could be misleading. The actual could be much higher considering the fact that the majority engineering graduates of any discipline are going to be employed in non engineering jobs including computer software related fields. In the software industry and the BPO industry of India, the markets lie beyond the boundaries of India and no one really knows how far this industry could go like this. Will the software industry bubble burst some day ? What would happen to the millions of Indians and the Indian economy that have now surrendered themselves to an economic activity which they do not really understand with regard to its market dynamics ? In other words, what would happen if the major markets that are outside India change their priorities ? Only foolish people will try to live without contingency plans !

So what are we supposed to do then ? Training engineering graduates and postgraduates in the engineering colleges in huge numbers is one thing. But that is not going to help India getting improvements in engineering expertise in any way. No fresh engineer is good to undertake any real life engineering work with confidence unless he or she gets the opportunity to get trained under experienced seniors for a couple of years. Again no engineering graduate can gain useful experience when opportunities of actual work exposure do not exist. A good number of working engineers in many organizations in India hardly get any useful experience to make them an expert in their field of work.

Indian planners, who are definitely not experienced engineers or technocrats, have forgotten the importance of having matching numbers of trained technicians and engineering supervisors and the importance of them gaining reliable work experiences by doing years of actual work. When India prefers to import equipment and systems from China and other countries, what is clearly forgotten is the opportunities lost in this country to get its people trained in core engineering and technology works.

Operating in this manner without understanding the fundamentals have landed India into a precarious situation. If any one wants to set up a manufacturing base in India, he is posed with the problem of shortage of experienced technicians and engineers. In a competitive world, how can you think of spending huge sums for training all your man power some where else always ? Barring a few, almost every manufacturing facility now India are foreign owned. They may close shop at any given time when things do not move in their favor.

Engineering graduates, post graduates and doctorates who work in the engineering colleges as teaching faculty cannot be considered as engineers with practical experience, in India. This is because of the extremely poor mobility of engineers from industry to academics and vice versa in India. The AICTE which is presently dominated by academicians seem to prevent this from happening for reasons that could be guessed easily. Engineering curricula in India is crammed with theoretical topics which are of practically no use in real life situations in many instances. Engineering colleges and universities need to learn tailoring of the courses for the benefit of the industries where the engineers are going to be employed by mutual interactions. However, due to the impractical approaches by AICTE and the institutions, such a thing can never happen in India as that are happening in developed countries like the USA and some European nations. The result is that India produce more cut-paste engineers who haven't really understood what engineering really is !

Now let me come to the personal side of engineering career. Engineers are the most isolated lot of professionals in the world, even while they do their jobs in teams. This is because, every individual engineer, in most situations of actual engineering, does a unique work most often not really understood by their colleagues, peers or seniors. Their problems are not realized by their family members, their employers or their colleagues who themselves could be engineers. This is true even for those engineers who happen to be modern IT engineers. Engineering in reality is a brain storming work and as human beings are, no one really wants to live with fuming brains always. Thus in real engineering field, a number of engineers learn the tricks of cheating their hardworking colleagues to gain easy benefits. Many times, especially in India, deserving engineers get neglected when clever colleagues snatch their opportunities. In such a situation, most often it so happens that the clever ones get elevated to top positions of technocracy. This complicates the matter further for real working engineers because now it would be their bosses who would do the actions of killing the real engineering and technology work environment. Real brainy engineers would be totally deprived of their opportunities to excel in their fields doing good for the country and the society. The easy goers would be happier and benefited if their organization get an equipment, project or technology from external sources rather than getting it done using their own talents ! Many organizations in India with major stakes in engineering and technology have failed miserably to accomplish their goals or sustain their goals only due to this kind of a situation. Indian engineers due to various reasons become so selfish that they fail to do mentoring their subordinates so that the latter can give their best in their career.

Another aspect which I have noticed is important to be understood in this context. The engineering curricula, as I said earlier, is too theoretical oriented that the young graduates do not get much opportunity to learn professional ethics and other soft skills that are essential in life. At the same time, when many of them proceed to do their management studies, they forget their engineering for all practical purposes. Unfortunately, post graduation and doctorate courses in engineering are more theoretical and are prepared by those who have learnt it in the same manner before. These courses only prepare an engineering graduate to be a teacher of some theoretical aspects  of applied physical sciences and they would no longer be in a position to distinguish between science and engineering. Unlike in other professional courses, engineering has degraded itself to be worth of considering as a professional course. Thanks to the way it proceeded in India in the last few decades.

The degradation is too visible when you notice the eagerness of some technocrats who proudly declare them as management experts and not as engineering experts. They consider engineering as an inferior job. This is a peculiar situation in India. No engineer in high positions in developed nations would ever prefer to say like this. In fact this particular situation has created a situation in India that many engineering organizations are now headed by non-engineers.

If any one has failed the engineering profession, no one else should be blamed. It is the so-called engineers themselves who created such a situation in this country. By creating that kind of a  situation they have knowingly or unknowingly made engineering a free-for-all profession with no value. That is perhaps the reason why the top brain engineers from the IITs and other such institutes are trying their level best to use their education to leave this country seeking better pastures elsewhere where they can use their talents and creativity in a better way !

India needs engineers who can work for India with honor and dignity. India needs to provide its engineers the opportunity to try out their skills without the hassles of constraints and pressure of opportunists. When that is possible, perhaps we could think of keeping pace with our neighbors like China.

At least we would be doing some justice to the million of youngsters who are hopefully spending their moneys and brains to acquire the basic skills in engineering. If we fail to do that, then it would soon be the engineering bubble that is going to burst in India !

Topics Related to Engineers and Engineering !

Water Supply , Sanitation and Solid Waste Management : Why does India Fair Poorly ?

Understanding Project Life Cycle in Engineering Projects !

Low Cost Pre-fabricated Houses: Something For Indian Entrepreneurs to Try Seriously !

Engineering Education in India: Some Suggestions from a 'Practising Engineer'

Engineering Services Department - the Trump Card for Long-term Success of Integrated Steel Plants (ISP)

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

Chemical Engineering : A Launch that Failed to get Momentum after Take Off !

Archiving of Engineering Drawings: An Essential Requirement for Large Process Industries !

EPC Services and Engineering Design Groups in India- Is there any HR crunch ?

Some Wishful Thoughts On Public Road Transport System of India !

Why do Indian Public Sector Undertakings Fail to Perform Now ?

Rising Petrol Prices: What Should be Done ?

India Goes Powerless Again: Can We Prevent these Disasters?

Infrastructure in India : Talking Much and Doing Nothing !

Modern Time Wasting Quality Management Systems !

Professional Development of Engineers in India: Do We Need to Do Something ?

Project Cost Estimation and Turnkey Contracts : Some Important Considerations !

Why do Project Contracts in India get Delayed Abnormally ? Any Solutions ?

City Management and Administration-A Lesson to be Learnt from the Canadian City of Edmonton !

Inhuman Land Acquisition for POSCO STEEL in Odisha: Is There a Better Way ?

The Tragic Tale of a Retired PSU Officer of India !

Raw Water Filtration: Some Technical Tips For Major Users

The Tragic Tale of a Retired PSU Officer of India !

This following is a brief account of what a Retired Chief Engineer of a top public sector engineering construction company narrated to the author. He is now in his late seventies, living with his old wife in a small rented room in the suburbs of a steel city in central India. I am putting the narration in his words:

I was born in a family of well educated people during the pre-independent India and our family was well off as per the standards of that time. My father was a top ranking officer of the British government in India.

All of us five brothers and sisters had good education. Myself and a brother of mine became engineers.

When we passed out as graduate engineers in Mechanical engineering from one of the top engineering colleges of India at that time, India's first prime minister  Jawahar Lal Nehruji's dream of making India self reliant in industry had taken shape in a few locations in North India in the form of large integrated steel plants. These were the steel plants at Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur. Three leading industrialized nations, namely, the USSR, West Germany and UK helped the just independent India in these three steel projects.

It was a dream for me to join the steel plant at Bhilai as a fresh engineer way back in the 1950's when the said steel plant had just commenced its production being set up in a green field site in the undeveloped Chhattisgarh region of the Central Province (later Madhya Pradesh) of India.

We all learned the skills from the skilled workmen and engineers from erstwhile USSR who worked with us and taught us the skills that we needed to manage the huge steel plant. Manny of us were trained in the steel plants of USSR too.

We did not have the facilities and the conveniences that the present day steel city of Bhilai has as the place was just getting its basic infrastructure for migrating people from the rest of India who were coming in large numbers to Bhilai due to the huge employment opportunities the new steel plant offered.

None of us, neither the engineers nor the workers had high salaries as it used to be the case with the developed capitalist worlds. But we had a salary good enough for a decent living with minimum luxuries. For example, I drew a monthly salary of less than Rs.500 equivalent to say about $ 50 at that time.

Being an officer of this company was indeed a coveted position having lots of prestige, except the fact that the salary was too meager and not attracting any prestige if disclosed outside. The prestige attached was because there was a hierarchy of about ten cadres of people numbering about three hundred in all for whom I was the boss.

In the Nineteen Sixties, the government of India formed a new steel company called the Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL) with its HQ at Ranchi. The government also made plans for making another integrated steel plant at Bokaro.

For making the heavy steel plant equipments, a company called the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) was set up with its establishments in Ranchi. This was a major step towards indigenization of technology and was a vision of Nehru ji. For the specialized works of construction of steel plants and such heavy industrial construction the Hindustan Steel Construction Limited (HSCL) was also formed by the government of India. HSL started its design and engineering wing called the Central Engineering and Design Bureau (CEDB) which was later converted to a separated central public sector undertaking called the Metallurgical and Engineering Consultants Limited, now called MECON with its HQ at Ranchi.

I remember the vision of the government in appointing Mr K T Chandy, a highly learned bureaucrat hailing from Kerala as the first Director Chairman of the largest PSU steel company which was to manage all the integrated steel plants in the public domain, namely the HSL. Incidentally this eminent man was made the founder Director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kolkata.

 Later, in the Seventies, the government set up the holding company called the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) with HQ at New Delhi as the holding company for the Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL) and HSL.

Thus me and my colleagues had become senior level officers of the largest industrial entity in India at that time called SAIL. But our salaries did not rise much commensurate with our experience or expertise. It was during this time that I took up an assignment with HSCL and moved to Bokaro as a senior construction engineer of that company carrying out the large scale steel plant project construction at Bokaro.

Nearly for another two decades I was with HSCL and I rose to the position of a Chief Engineer, a post with tremendous responsibilities at that time. Later I became the Project head for a large thermal power plant under construction in Uttar Pradesh for which HSCL was entrusted with the task of construction and commissioning. Nearly three thousand people were working under my charge at that time.

Even at that time, apart from my position and high responsibility I had made pretty nothing in my life as my savings for me and my wife. I had a couple of more years to my retirement by the end of the Eighties and my salary was still not much. It was still less than Rs.10,000/- per month.

We had no children to look after us after my retirement, a solace a good majority of my colleagues were having. They had educated their children in the steel city schools in Bhilai or in other steel cities and many of them had migrated to foreign countries like the Gulf or the USA. They realized the folly of their parents working in India for peanuts. They did not want to repeat that mistake !

Any way such children were the hope for their parents who were to retire from the Indian PSU after toiling for a life time. The government coolly cheated them by making the PSU service a non-pensionable service. Instead we were offered contributory provident fund (CPF) where in about 8.33% of our monthly basic salary and dearness allowance went to the provident fund which would be given to us in lump sum when we retire. The company also contributed an equivalent sum.

But with all these, when I would retire in another few years, I would be getting just about Rs.800,000/- or so. Even with my cash savings in hand the total money that I would be having will not go more than Rs.1000,000. I had not made any house for me to live yet because; in my busy work schedule it was not possible to undertake such a thing. Moreover, I did not have enough income to get a decent house purchased or made. Building a house at that time meant an expenditure of at least Rs.500,000/-

The salary was going to come to naught in another couple of years. All I have to do is to deposit all my retirement benefits in some fixed deposits and get the steady interest income for my living. At that time many banks and the government post offices offered an interest of about 12 % per annum. Perhaps all my investments together would get me a monthly interest more or less equivalent to the monthly salary that I was drawing at that time.

So as things stood at that time I should not have worried much ! But there was indeed a worry. By being in the employment my house was owned by the company and I paid just Rs.120 as its rent per month. But the moment I retire, I have to find a rented private accommodation costing nearly twenty times that. And the rents would increase every year while my interest income would not increase.

There were reasons for panic!

It was time to think of alternatives.

Let me clarify one thing here. In those days a good majority of us in influential positions of job never thought of making any money by unfair means, especially those in the senior positions. We had plenty of opportunities for that. But we never thought in those lines. We believed in ethics and integrity, the lessons that we learnt from our parents. We believed in doing our responsibilities honestly.

But the ground realities of life was staring at me. I needed more money if me and my wife had to live decently for another ten or twenty years after my retirement from the PSU service till our death. If I am gone earlier what my wife would do ?

There appeared no chances in the near future that the government of India would thing of hiking the salaries of the PSU people like us. Already there are talks and rumors going on where in the public and the media are maligning the PSUs as inefficient white elephants draining the public exchequer. The politicians of the day are talking of privatization and closing down of the PSUs that had now become spent horses.

While my colleagues who joined the government services are going to lead a good retired life with decent monthly pensions which would rise with rising costs, we are to retire with some lumpsum money, manage it properly till our deaths for a living. Would it be possible for me ?

The public perception about the  PSU officers were that they were making a good fortune.

At least that was also the feeling of those at the helm of affairs in India in those days, because it was the salary of the President of India which used to be the bench mark for all public servants. The rule that prevailed in those days was that no one in India can have a salary more than the President of India ! In those days the salary of  the first citizen of India was fixed at Rs.10,000/- per month. The President lived in a palatial landmark in the national capital and the expenses of his living were all outside the salary and such other things were things that no one preferred to talk in public !

So every salaried person in India whether working for the government or for any private employer had to be satisfied with a salary equal or less than the President of India.

While those in top posts lamented about their poor pay packets, those down in the rungs, especially those who are not classified as executives or officers were quite happy and well off. Many of them had gross pays much more than many of their younger bosses. If a person of this category worked an hour extra than their normal daily working hours, the employer was required to pay an overtime allowance that was equal to twice their normal hourly rate of pay. But those in the officer category could not get this even when some of them are required to work for more than 16 hours a day on many days.

India of those days worked on the principles of socialism. Elitism and aristocracy, though ruled the roost among the rich and the powerful, the government and its political leaders always showed a public face just the opposite. So, common electronic items like the TV, telephone and the tape recorder, which had become ordinary gadgets in the rest of the world, were undesirable and sinful luxury items in India which the leaders consistently advised the common man not to desire.

While many patriotic and helpless Indians within India toiled for peanuts, working hard for the progress of their 'just-got- independent-nation' a good number of their fellows found out ways to enhance their personal wealths by other means.

While within India direct benefits of employment were limited with regard to salary and perks, that was not the case in some other countries. In these countries the salaries were so lucrative and unimaginable in India. The leaders in the Indian government kept on blaming the centuries of slavery and the loot the nation had suffered under the foreigners for the sad state of poverty in India. Whenever other nations with similar backgrounds made fantastic improvements, Indians kept on dreaming helplessly.

While Indian leaders were fully satisfied with their president getting a monthly salary of just Rs.10000/- and projecting it as a great humility, those workers who could not even think of making Rs.500/- per month in India earned at par with their president by taking the challenge of leaving their country and working for the those foreign nations.

The money they send back to India soon was to become the life sustaining economic strength for India, lovingly called the foreign exchange.

Simultaneously another group was emerging in India. They were the people who did not go abroad for earning a livelihood, but remained within India, employed in government departments for providing governmental services. What they earned from their salaries was indeed peanuts. But soon they were to learn their huge potential of earning incomes much more than their non-resident fellows who sent the foreign exchange. This potential came from the statutory power their government job provided. The effect was going to have detrimental effects in the Indian administrative system. The government jobs were to be divided based on reservations in accordance with the democratic number power and not on the basis of merit and competency.

Though the public sector undertakings belonged to the government, the jobs in public sector was slowly becoming non lucrative as the fellows who worked in these PSU's were slowly losing out their statutory powers and status to their counter parts who worked directly in the government departments. The PSU salary scales were the same but they were just impotent working class who were destined to produce in their government run factories according to the rules and regulations made by their real owners-their counterparts who worked in direct government service.

Thus India of the 1980's had its people divided economically as the following:

1. The public servants who earned a salary (peanuts in paper) and also unaccounted income through their power and position (huge unaccounted black money earned through corruption)

2. The political functionaries who extracted a portion of the huge unaccounted income from their serving public servants or external beneficiaries.

3. The business people who made huge money if in league with the first two.

4. The key employees of the private business firms who shared substantial income other than their salary by other means.

5. Salaried class whose income is only what is given as salary (less than the President of India)

7. People who inherited huge property

8. Labor class, small farmers and petty business men who labored for a living with no guarantee of income.

9. People who lived from charity and religious donations or worked for charity or religious organizations

10.  People who brought foreign exchange

I had only few years left before I became too old to work. Then came what appeared as a golden opportunity for me. The government for the first time introduced the 'Golden Handshake Scheme' for the senior employees of the PSUs. Apparently the government thought the problems of the PSUs were due to the huge work force which needed to be reduced. They were offering almost full salary in advance to those who have left only few years for retirement if such an employee opted to voluntarily retire from the company.

Frankly we did not get the logic behind it. What the government was going to get if they kick off people with full salaries of their remaining months of service in their respective PSUs? No work no pay of yester years was logical, but this no- work- full- pay was not understandable!

Any way that is none of our problem. They were giving the money and I was going to take it. I decided that I would take the money and quit. There were opportunities for us outside because we were experts in construction management. We could even venture to do things our own. We could bag some construction contracts and with our expertise would be in a position to make good money. That was my thinking.

I got a colleague also to align with my thinking. So we took the so called benefits of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) of our PSU Company and left it in the early 1990's. 

We registered a partnership firm and managed to bag a good engineering construction contract from the PSU power company, the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC). With our money and with borrowed money we completed the project successfully. The work was erection and commissioning of an Ash Handling Piping system at one of the power station sites of NTPC. The payments that would be released by NTPC for the said contract, was enough for us to get back our investments with reasonable profits. We thought that would soon happen.

But our fate went the other way. We being top executives of another reputed PSU earlier and never been tasted the kick of bribes unwittingly underestimated such an eventuality in our new employer. We were determined to pay no bribes to the small time functionaries of NTPC as we were confident of the work that we had been doing, though we were getting small hints here and there.

That was the serious mistake that we did. The company did not release the payments due to us. Our liabilities began to rise.

In contracts disputes are settled through the process of arbitration. In the earlier days I my self had worked in arbitration cases in various roles. I opted for the arbitration route and won my case. But the company was not to agree with the ruling of the arbitrator. It went on appeal in the court.

I fought the case in the court too and spent a good part of my remaining life running after the case and even got favorable rulings from all the courts. But I was fighting with a big establishment whose employees who were holding posts similar to the ones I held earlier were not to show any such regards to me. My partner died during this time as a dejected and defeated man in life.

I worked for small time business men who paid occasionally for keeping me and my wife alive. I had even sold of the ancestral property my father had given me to keep us living.

Almost after fifteen years later, for the first time I watch my juniors get decent salaries in those PSUs which are still continuing to exist, though many of those others have just vanished. 

I am still living and I do not know how and do not know even how far! 

Many of my colleagues had been fortunate that they had gone from the face of this earth already. 

On the whole my life was sweet which went too sour at the end. 

Dear friends, the narrator above is not a lone case in India. There are many such veterans of yester years who are now leading miserable and helpless lives. There is no one to take care of them or plead for them. Can we just ignore them? I am not sure. Do you have any suggestions? 

Professional Development of Engineers in India: Do We Need to Do Something ?

In many advanced countries, engineering can be practiced only by statutorily recognized engineers. It is a generally recognized fact that competence, experience and expertise of engineers have a direct impact on the well being and safety of the public at large. [You may recapitulate the background of the issue here in this Wikipedia article : Regulation and licensure in engineering ]

While going through this article you would come across the present status of engineering practice in India. Wikipedia states like this :

In India, Engineers with an engineering degree (BE/BTech/ME/MTech), from an accredited university, are allowed to practice as Consulting Engineers - there is no statutory requirement for any further licence or registration with any institution or body. However, there are several major bodies/ institutions of Engineers, the largest and most recognized being The Institution of Engineers (India), with Head Quarters in Kolkata and branches in every major city.

Note this : There is no statutory requirement for any further licence or registration with any institution or body.

With the experience of being associated with the Institution of Engineers (India) for many years as a corporate member and also being associated with the management of affairs of this professional body for a couple of years in a city with a very high population of engineers, I have been feeling the urge to write about the falling professionalism in engineering in this vast country poised to develop in a fast pace.

In India, nearly 1.5 million fresh engineers graduate every year after completing  their engineering degree examinations, every year. Thanks to the liberal policies of the central and state governments of India concerning engineering education. Regrettably, for a good majority of these young Indian engineers, the options for a livelihood actually is not actually in the core field of engineering. But in other areas like software development, sales and marketing, banking, IT enabled services, etc. A good number of brilliant engineers take up further studies in management and migrate to non-engineering type of works which are having better career opportunities.

A fresh engineer taking up his career in non-engineering fields soon gets dissociated from the nitty- gritties of engineering practice. All the academic inputs that she or he has been exposed while as an engineering student, soon get evaporated. The basics of engineering that was learnt are soon forgotten making it difficult for the person to refresh up later if he or she has to switch over to an engineering related work.

I do not say that such persons are not doing engineering related works. In reality many are employed and are in responsible positions of engineering.

Since there is no statutory guidelines for ensuring the the competence, knowledge or experience of a person in engineering related works, practically any one can do any type of engineering in India, provided she or he has a degree from a recognized institution.

Other requirements to ensure engineering competency and experience are conveniently forgotten.

Such a scenario has caused the professional bodies of engineering, including the Institution of Engineers (India) facing continuous degradation over the years. They are no more able to do justice in upholding the professional competency and ethical behaviour of their members.

The membership of these engineering bodies are not providing any direct benefit to the members because there is no statute that make it mandatory for engineering work to be regulated by these professional bodies, unlike in the case of other professions such as the medical doctors, lawyers, etc.

In India it is a common thing to make a hue and cry when some thing goes wrong.

When some thing of the Bhopal gas tragedy or a major rail accident or a factory accident take place some enquiries and reports are made only to be forgotten soon.

No one actually goes into the aspects of cumulative human errors on account of faulty or unethical engineering practices that ultimately cause such avoidable human disasters.

In India, design and engineering is a very neglected field. No one actually ensures the actual level of experience needed for an engineer to do a particular type of engineering work. Same is the case with construction, maintenance, operation and the like.

It does not mean that experienced engineers are not working or deployed in India. They are there every where. But there is a high likelihood of the right man at the wrong place or the wrong man at the right place ! Or a team made of experienced engineers linked with totally inexperienced ones !

Who is competent to certify an engineering work ? Who is there to testify before the courts if some legal issues are  involved ?

Due to the lack of statutes, it is a free ride for all. Any one can interpret things the way they like !

That makes working in engineering field is a highly risky thing in India. Remember the case some years ago in Bharat Aluminium Company, Korba, Chhattisgarh, where a trainee engineer was jailed by the police together with an Executive Director and some Chinese engineers when a tall chimney under construction collapsed causing many casualties. In the absence of clear rules, the engineering work becomes very risky for the practising engineers. It becomes more so, when there is no professional body to take up their collective cause.

This kind of situation in India causes experienced engineers trying to distance themselves from taking documentary technical decisions. Usually the less experienced become the scapegoats !

The Institution of Engineers (India) is the only statutory body (the statute being a legacy from the British Raj !) which can do some thing to work towards some proper solutions in this regard.

Unfortunately this body has been at loggerheads with the government of India for quite some years !

A very unfortunate situation for the fraternity of practising Indian engineers ! I remember taking up some of these issues internally within this body some years ago when I used to hold some position in this body of engineers. But let me admit it, I failed miserably due to the vested interests of a few people, while there was a large support from learned engineers from many quarters. Ever since, I too felt it wise to distance from this body for good.

When a serious rail accident happened some where in the north some years ago, the government of India drafted a bill called the ' Engineers Bill' and to control engineering practice and the engineers. It never got introduced in the parliament to become a statute. This draft bill contradicted the Royal Charter that governed the Institution of Engineers (India). In reality, this happened because of the bureaucratic ignorance coupled with the ignorance of those at the top management affairs of the largest professional body of engineers in India.

My only submission to all those connected with the practice of engineering in India is this: It is high time that some thing is done to safeguard the engineers and their jobs so that it is beneficial to the society in the long run. No work involving engineering should be a cause for any catastrophe due to negligence, ignorance or incompetency. At the same time engineers should not shy away from taking challenges in building, operating and maintaining major engineering and technological innovations that benefit the society. 

Competent and experienced engineers need to be professionally encouraged to take up challenges and take decisions fulfilling all essential levels of technical, commercial and ethical requirements. 

Succession planning has to be proper to ensure smooth transfer of experience and wisdom of senior experienced engineers and technocrats to lower levels.

Professional bodies such as the Institution of Engineers (India) should be statutorily strengthened to function well just as in some of the advanced countries. If needed, government should intervene to make it in order.

Practising engineers should be able to move to engineering academics and engineering academicians should be able to move to engineering professional practice.

Practising engineers from India should internationally acceptable for their competence, expertise and experience. 

How we do it all in the best possible and practical manner is yet another issue.

But it is time to think, lest this noble profession might degenerate further in this country !

Do we have to wait for such a thing to actually happen ?

[To view and read all the blogs of the author related to engineering and engineers you may use these words as the key words in the key word search box facility on the right panel top. Alternatively you may click the labels at the bottom of the article.]