I believe that intelligent management of a nation’s economy
has to aim at availability of jobs for all. There is hardly any politician who
disagrees with this. But what amazes me is that the Indian politician rarely
mentions productive jobs. Creating jobs that don’t create goods or services is
a fraud on the nation. It merely fuels inflation.
Today I heard a politician saying on TV that she had seen
drugstores abroad using scanners through which customers scan the bar codes on
the goods they wish to purchase. The customer then pays for the goods swiping
his or her credit card and goes off. No one is needed at the counter. Our neta
was appalled.
It appears to me that nothing is lost and a lot is gained by
using technology and education to automate the mundane tasks in life, ensuring
that people do better things in their life. Not a great new idea! Norbert
Wiener wrote about it in his book The Human Use
of Human Beings in 1950.
Associated with this issue is that of worker training and
productivity. Let me cite a hilarious instance of poor training leading to
wasted human effort. Two weeks ago, I was considering the replacement of my
swivel chair for use at my computer desk. A nice leather upholstered chair at
Rs 25,000 in a shop window attracted me. I would have bought it except for a
concern about disposing off my current chair. It is in good shape, except that its
polyurethane arm rests have worn out. I hesitated to give it away in its current
run-down condition. Then it occurred to me that I could get the company to
replace the armrests. After all we do have a tradition in this country of
providing for repair of seven year old products, an intelligent use of our vast
under-employed workforce. The chair had been bought from a large, nationally
well-known manufacturer of office furniture. I called their call center, and
was told that a repairman would call and that I would be charged Rs 250 for the
visit. I accepted that offer and the man turned up within day or two. He said
that he would have to order a set of armrests and that it would cost me Rs 500
or so. Amazing, isn’t it? I paid the 500; he gave me a receipt and used his
cell phone to call his office and convey the order. I was deeply impressed, but
was told that the stuff would have to come from Mumbai and it would take ten
days. I was willing to wait.
Then yesterday, he turned up again with a package in his
hands. I brought the chair out into the hall and he took one look at it and
gasped. The package in his hands contained only one of the two armrests
required. He stared at some work sheet in his hand, a penciled note on which it
read “one set armrest”. He picked up his cellphone and called his office again.
The product code used had been wrong. He is an intelligent man though he has
trouble in coping with the many languages Bangalore requires you to know, including
English. So, I paid another Rs 500. He will come again a couple of weeks later.
Well, that is one of the factors that keeps India poor. Why
can’t the big company’s field operations be better managed? Why can’t they
train their workforce better? With such an ill-trained workforce and such poor
management, no good will come out of our “demographic dividend”!
Srinivasan Ramani
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