Goverment Killing itself?

I came home today from college and was surprised to see my mother opening the door. "What are you doing here? Didn't you go to the office?", I asked. "I told you yesterday. BSNL employees on strike. No office today. You never listen to me", she replied. Then I asked her the details of the strike. BSNL wanted to expand its subscriber base. So new equipment was needed for the expansion. A tender was started a year back. The lowest bidder would supply the equipments. The tender took many months to complete and finally one company was chosen. Before the tender could be approved by the then Union Minister for Communication and Technology, he was replaced and a new minister came in his place. The new minister felt the lowest bid itself was expensive and has requested for a re-tender. Due to this delay, BSNL went down from No.2 to No.3 in its ranking of number of mobile customers. If there is a re-tender, the delay would cause a huge loss to the company, which would affect the employees. I was both happy and disturbed by the details of the strike. Happy because, the employees are striking for issues other than salary hikes and other perks and are actually concerned about the pathetic state of their organization. Disturbed because, the issue poses a very high threat not only to BSNL but any government organization. The attitude and policies of the government is the first and the only obstacle to the growth of Government and Government-aided organizations.

If any private company wants to declare a tender for the same reason, the CMD of the company would have a meeting with the representatives of the companies, the tender would be quoted within a week, there would be negotiations with the lowest bidder to reduce the price and the order would be placed within 15 to 20 days. When it comes to a government tender, the reasons for opening the tender must be analyzed by a team of executives and a 50 page report must be produced and signed by the concerned heads, which takes a month or two. Next, a detailed report of the required equipments and their descriptions must be written and sent to the participating companies. A half page advertisement in all the English newspapers containing all the details of the tender must be published. The companies are given another month to decide and quote their price in sealed envelopes. A date is fixed for opening the sealed covers and the Prices and Conditions of all the companies are thoroughly analyzed and documented by a team of professionals. The best company is selected. Their worldwide credibility and popularity is checked by another team. It is checked if they will be able to produce within the deadline with their resources. Then the company is called in again for negotiations. "You gave the same equipments for Rs. 3950 to MTNL. Now you are quoting Rs. 4150. Please reduce". "No sir, cost of labour has increased, raw materials price increased." "Ok.... give for Rs.4050." "Ok, sir." Now there is another rule in government organization that the entire tender must not be given to the same company, to avoid problems which you can guess. 50% is given to the lowest bidder, another 20% to the next lowest bidder after negotiations for the same price and so on. After all this toiling for 6 to 8 months, the tender goes to the concerned minister for approval, who has no knowledge of the past procedures, but is of course guided by his own qualified group of professionals. And if the private competitors somehow get a whiff of it, they will make their contribution to the problem. Reminds you of Adiseshan of Sivaji, right? "The cost is Rs. 4050, but last year MTNL finished the tender at Rs. 3950. We can't afford this. Start a new tender."

The worst part of all this, is that BSNL is not even a government organization. It has long been made a Public Sector. The approval of the Advisory board and CMD must be sufficient to close any tender, yet the Minister's opinion is being awaited. If a Public Sector gets the Navaratna status, this can happen. With small companies like BHEL etc. getting the status, it is a pathetic situation that one of the largest and the most profitable organization still not being able to make its own decision. The overflowing subscribers requesting for CellOne connections are being made to wait for days, not because there are not enough towers or bandwidth to accommodate traffic, but because there are not enough Sim cards being manufactured to keep up with the demand. And it's not like private companies where the company manufacturing the Sim card can be sacked and the tender given to a new company. There is no way, other than to keep begging them to supply on time. And God knows if that company is serving other interests. Next you know, the company that was donating 4000-5000 crores as profit to the Central Exchequer during yearly budgets and was compensating for the losses of Postal and Railway Departments, would be shown as running at loss due to competitors and would be slowly shut down in a phased manner.