My Dear Sri Gurcharan Das

I read your articles in the TOI, was enlightened by your superficial analysis of the peripheral issues and overjoyed to find that my idea of an 'expert' was totally correct. Sir, your infinite wisdom and a clinical precision of argument left me dumbfounded!

Though, Sir, I do not want to sound audacious but if you permit then this 'non-expert' who is blissfully unaware of the "Basic Management Concept of Core Competency" would like to say something. Sir, what was happening in the corporate sector and how were certain experts earning their livelihood when such clichéd terms like "Core Competency" or the ornamental phrases with no substantive value (viz. "winners don't do different things, they do things differently" or "common sense is not so common") were not coined?? I guess things might have been difficult then for them!

As per my 'non-expert' understanding, the various ailments of the Railways, as diagnosed by you, were lack of awareness about the 'sacred' principle of "Core Competency", overstaffing, skewed freight and fare structure, corruption, flaws in promotion policy, low productivity, departmental privileges (Railwaymen occupying 40 out of 100 berths in 2-AC(!!)), less outlay on repairs and maintenance and filth on the 20 km stretch of tracks around Delhi.

Sir, you have been very vocal and scathing in your condemnation of the Railways' plans of going in for "Railneer". And right you are-for this goes against the principle of "core competency" which is so much in fashion these days! But sir, would you kindly enlighten this ignoramus about the other concept (outdated though you might call it!!) of "diversification”? How many Companies in the Fortune-500 list are the ones who have not diversified? Didn't you give your highly valued opinion to the corporate bigwigs like the TATAs and the Reliances about 'core competence' and ask them to limit themselves to steel or petrochemicals? And sir, what about your suggestion to the Railways to utilize some of the 5 lakhs surplus employees to clean the tracks around Delhi? I wonder if that falls in the Railways' 'core competence'! Here I am inclined to think that you have a sense of humour and the suggestion was given in a lighter vein.

Sir, please allow me to deal with your two submissions about the overstaffing and skewed freight and fare structure. For once your submission had a grain of truth in it. But sir, how do you expect to get rid of 5 lakhs employees affecting 25 lakhs people of this country, if a family of five with two children and one of the parents is taken. Do you think that by a stroke of pen you can wish them away? Cant we take them as social-sector-spending as espoused by Amartya Sen? When we adopted a "Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic" we were not going in for an Ideological socialism but an Idealistic socialism. And profit motive was/is not our SOLE concern. Similarly high freight charges to cross subsidize the cheap passenger fare also was done with a basic premise of giving cheap mobility to the toiling masses. I am not saying that this is correct. What I most humbly submit, Sir, is this that you should do a  'Social Cost and Benefit Analysis (SCBA)' and then prove that in the long term this is inimical to the interests of the country and its citizen. Just a cavalier, armchair, self-assured prognosis does not behove an 'expert' like you.

Sir, you talked about the 'perverse system of promotion based on seniority'. But did I find a foolproof alternative method of promotion prescribed by you? The answer is a crying NO. Typical of a practicing expert you just wanted to demolish the system by a stroke of pen without telling any alternative viable system. Do you think 'spoils system' will be better? This system has more chances of nepotism and favoritism and abuse. If you want 'meritocracy', who will judge the merit- the boss or an outsider? If it is the boss then his subjective satisfaction will be there and if it is the outsider then he wont be aware of all the limitations of the working conditions. The cliché that "In a hierarchical organization, people rise to their level of incompetence" might only be indicative; it certainly is not conclusive - as you would have us believe!

Sir you cited an instance of the CAM of Kanpur being transferred out after Rajdhani derailment because 'he was not looking after the Chairman of Railway Board'. It is sad to see an enlightened person like you going for this titillating explanation of the transfer rather than attributing the same to fixing the blame for the accident. (Unless of course you were told about this reason by the CRB himself!)

In your next dose of wisdom, Sir, you talked about the financial mess that the Railways were in and that "they will wither away like the state in (sic) Bihar". To say the least I would want to say Sir, that your simile is preposterous. Moreover the prescription list which you have given is so banal and unimaginative that I have started harboring hopes of becoming an 'expert' after the Railways have got rid of me as per your suggestions of removing the dead wood! It is amazing that in just two articles the fate of the Railways have been decided by an expert without any corroborative data to buttress his point when it had taken years of study and loads of data for a full committee to come to some conclusions.

Respected sir, you are such a strong votary of the concept of "core competence" and you freely prescribe it to all and sundry. I wonder why don't you follow it yourself and confine yourself to your own "core competence"-wherever that might lie. Certainly even an expert cannot be assumed to know everything of everything. And there lies the catch : this drummed up principle cant be prescriptive only for others, it is also for the self.

Sir, your whole analysis and solution was casual, superficial, peripheral, perfunctory and self assured without any corroborative data to buttress your point. It had nothing 'expert' about it in spite of your grandiose declaration at the end of the first article viz "I will talk about how to reinvent the Railways in my next article". Even a pharmacist can prescribe a medicine; but doctors do it differently!


Saurabh Chandra Mitra
Asst. Divisional Accounts Officer
BRC DIV