Articles
Reminiscences
Dt:27/5/26
Reminiscences
Dr T H Chowdary*
There was a Sareen Committee in the year 1981 with Man Mohan Singh as another member and Sri M.M. Kini as Secretary to suggest improvements in the service rendered by the telecoms . This committee went round the country and suggested hundreds of items for improvement and submitted hinders of recommendations. A post of a Director ( Junior Administrative grade) was created in the directorate to have these suggestions implemented. I went to the directorate in 1983 as DDG and found this Director’s submitting a report every fortnight about the implementation. Most reports from the field suggested the implementation status . I found this is the useless exercise because in the most circles suggested that these were being implemented some were at the implementation stage. This was the usual useless exercise. The service did not see any improvement. So I summarized and said that all the hundreds of recommendations were implemented and therefore this special post of Director COT may be wound up. It was wound up. There was no discernible improvement .
2. In the 1960s the telecoms were planning nation wise subscriber dialing. It had a numbering plan, a charging plan and a routing plan in the transmission plan. A blanket order was issued that no circle should open another exchange within 20 kmts of an existing exchange without getting permission from the directorate. So hundreds of cases from the circles piled up in the directorate without decision being conveyed. I thought as this was a useless exercise as Asst Chief Engineer I was to communicate to the circles approval are ban. The nation subscribers dialing is a decades in future had to stop the opening of other exchanges was meaningless. So I collected hundreds of these files from the circles and conveyed almost blanket approval for opening all the exchanges. My DDG Sri Ramakant was astounded . I told him to stop something happening before the plan was even made wrong. Therefore I precipitately advised the circles to go ahead with the opening of every exchange which they think is necessary. This is the famous /notorious 20 kmt exchange ban.
3. Once there was a question in the Rajya Sabha about unsatisfactory telephone services - inflated bills, wrong numbers, huge delay on trunk calls ( leading to the introduction of lightening calls at 8 times the normal charge..) . Sri C M Stephen was the Minister. His reply was , “there is no compulsion for any citizen to take telephone service. Surrender if they are not satisfied”.
4. When Sri C M Stephen was the Minister for Communications and when I was General Manager, Telecoms AP there was an all India strike of the telegram men - telegraphists , telegram messengers etc. Sri Stephen was passing through Hyderabad. I met him in the Gest House in Hyderabad. He inquired as to how the telegram strike was working. I said that there are no telegrams. How did you manage that he asked. I replied: “at every telegraph office in AP I put a notice, “just across there is a post office, you can post the telegram. It will reach earlier as the telegram men are on strike and no telegram is being transmitted even if it is accepted”. With this notice those who came to send a telegram went back and posted the message. Therefore strike has no effect since there is no telegram traffic. So within 1 or 2 days the strike was called off in the state.
5. On another occasion telegram messengers who deliver messages collected them from the telegraph office for delivery at the address were on strike. I sent word to a relative of mine to send 20 unemployed young people to the telegraph office . They were authorized to take them from the telegraph office to deliver at the addressees. Within 24 hrs the telegram messengers ended their strike.
These are some of the unusual measures while dealing with staff strife /strike.
6. General Managers of telecommunications in all states and projects were required to send fortnightly report of important events and projects to the directorate. A Dy Director General was to read these and offer his comments both to the GMs as well as to the Dir Gen .
6.1 Sri R Balasubramanian, a General Manager sent reports to Sri S Y Nagakarni , a DDG who was to read these and report significant things to the Secretary of the Dept.
6.2 Sri R Balasurbramanian, a General Manager in T&D circle carrying out some important projects once visited the directorate and met with Sri Nagakarni and asked him whether he was reading every report he was sending every month. Sri Nagakarni said that he reads and read his report also very scrupulously. Then Sri Balasubramanian asked Sri Nagakarni to produce the file in which his reports are filed. Sri Nagakarni called for it . Sri Balu asked to pick up his report on so and so date. Sri Nagakarni got the file and gave it to Balu. Sri Balu picked up the page in the file and asked Nagakarni whether he read that page also. Sri Nagakarni replied that every page of his report was read by him.
6.3 Then Sri Balu picked up the slip of paper attached to his letter and showed to him , “ he who read the slip attached to this letter is a donkey”. Sri Nagakarni was surprised - minute ago he said he was reading every letter but now it has become clear that he did not read even this letter containing the reader is a donkey.
6.4 That is how government officers produce papers and files many of which are just filed. “operation successful ; the patient dead”. (955 words)
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