raaj-less inspection
India must easily hold the world record for the number of laws and rules that the country is governed by, though when it comes to compliance and enforcement, I am sure, we would rank right at the bottom. Many of these laws have been handed down from the Britisher's times. And, even though the Britishers may have re-written, or even rescinded many of those that have no relevance in today's world, we still retain them. And, given half a chance, the babu will use it against you to extract his pound of flesh, using his army of inspectors.
As the law minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, Arun Shourie had set himself to address this issue, the then government generally having a liberalist view in these matters. But, inspite of himself, he could not achieve much, giving an indication of the enormity of the task, and the situation improved only marginally, if at all.
Well, like I have stated elsewhere, it is a true testimony to the spirit of Indian entrepreneurship that it is flourishing inspite of all these.
During the times I was running a manufacturing unit, I had set up a kind of a procedure to handle the inspectors who were there almost every second day. From the very beginning itself, I had made sure that we were complying with all the important aspects of the rules, making fresh, even if sometimes costly, investments as were required for the purpose. As such, we had a near perfect set up, which would even then have perhaps been today's ISO 14001 compliant. But, considering the number of laws, and the rules thereunder, and their complexities, it was almost impossible to comply with all the aspects of each of them totally. And, the inspectors had quite perfected the art of looking for these, irrespective of whether they had any direct bearing on the primary concern they were supposed to address.
I had an elderly man for a manager who, after attending to all the paper work meticulously, had himself perfected the art of countering the inspectors' ways, and limiting the 'mamools' to within reasonable limits. We had built ourselves a reputation for taking matters to the highest levels if the inspectors acted too greedy, though this came about through paying some hefty prices in the early stages. Consequently, the inspectors generally collected their mamools at the minimum levels and went away without creating much of a problem.
In such a scenario, the Department of Industries, GoK, alone had the stipulation that the annual certification for compliance under the Boilers & Pressure Vessels Act, be obtained from a 'chartered engineer'. Over the many years that I had been running the unit, I would have had to interact with quite a few of them. Each, without exception, I must record here, went about his task meticulously, earning every pie of the fee he was charging. And, the fee generally was lower than that charged by the other departments who sent their inspectors essentially to collect the mamools in the pretence of the inspection.
Very clearly the 'chartered engineer' route provided the necessary accountability, as well as relief to the industry from the inspector raaj, and therefore provided the ready model for other departments to follow, assuming of course they are looking for one.
As the law minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, Arun Shourie had set himself to address this issue, the then government generally having a liberalist view in these matters. But, inspite of himself, he could not achieve much, giving an indication of the enormity of the task, and the situation improved only marginally, if at all.
Well, like I have stated elsewhere, it is a true testimony to the spirit of Indian entrepreneurship that it is flourishing inspite of all these.
During the times I was running a manufacturing unit, I had set up a kind of a procedure to handle the inspectors who were there almost every second day. From the very beginning itself, I had made sure that we were complying with all the important aspects of the rules, making fresh, even if sometimes costly, investments as were required for the purpose. As such, we had a near perfect set up, which would even then have perhaps been today's ISO 14001 compliant. But, considering the number of laws, and the rules thereunder, and their complexities, it was almost impossible to comply with all the aspects of each of them totally. And, the inspectors had quite perfected the art of looking for these, irrespective of whether they had any direct bearing on the primary concern they were supposed to address.
I had an elderly man for a manager who, after attending to all the paper work meticulously, had himself perfected the art of countering the inspectors' ways, and limiting the 'mamools' to within reasonable limits. We had built ourselves a reputation for taking matters to the highest levels if the inspectors acted too greedy, though this came about through paying some hefty prices in the early stages. Consequently, the inspectors generally collected their mamools at the minimum levels and went away without creating much of a problem.
In such a scenario, the Department of Industries, GoK, alone had the stipulation that the annual certification for compliance under the Boilers & Pressure Vessels Act, be obtained from a 'chartered engineer'. Over the many years that I had been running the unit, I would have had to interact with quite a few of them. Each, without exception, I must record here, went about his task meticulously, earning every pie of the fee he was charging. And, the fee generally was lower than that charged by the other departments who sent their inspectors essentially to collect the mamools in the pretence of the inspection.
Very clearly the 'chartered engineer' route provided the necessary accountability, as well as relief to the industry from the inspector raaj, and therefore provided the ready model for other departments to follow, assuming of course they are looking for one.
posted by Muralidhar Rao at
5:20 AM
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