Thursday, September 19, 2013

Here in India, the rich don't obey rules because they are 'rich'; and the poor don't obey the rules because they are 'poor'
I liked these words fromJames Altucher's this article : http://jamesaltucher.quora.com/How-To-Be-A-Slave

"Money won't solve all of your problems, but it will solve your money problems."

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Creating employment - the stupid way

I saw workers unload a train load of cement bags today, at Alwaye Railway station, near Kochi(Kerala, not Japan, obviously). It's hundreds of tonnes of cement, in 50kg bags, each carried on head, to the trucks parked nearby. 

No, automation is not yet in agenda here. 

It's a very defined set I procedure they're doing - lift the cement bags, move to the truck, keep it there in stacks. It could've been done much faster, in better order and very efficiently by a simple machine, instead of tens of labourers carrying the loads, one at a time. 

It definitely is a point that employment opportunities should be created, and everyone should have jobs. But should it be by appointing 30-40 men doing inefficient jobs which can actually be very quickly and efficiently done by one or two men and a simple machine? I don't think this is the way forward. This is the way back to 1910. 

How many employees are required to run a bus service in Kerala, the most literate state in India? 
4 : One driver, one 'conductor' to serve tickets to the passengers, one guy to open and close the front door, another to open and close the back door. Very funny indeed.

I have a strong disagreement with creating employment opportunities like this. If India has strong workforce, why can't our nation be a world leader in manufacturing high quality products and exporting? Why can't we humans focus on doing things which machines can't do? 

We have to find better things to spend our valuable time than being a replacement for simple machines.

Why don't they just do it?

We all know that hundreds of people fall from trains by being pushed out by the doors closing accidentally. Even while writing this on the way to Bangalore from Kochi in the Intercity Express, the door very near to me will close if the brakes are applied reasonably quick, pushing out anyone who sits on the doorsteps. My question is, why don't they fit a simple latch to keep the door in open position? It won't cost much, and is simple enough to avoid even any discussion about whether to have it or not.

But still our train doors keep on helping people out when they don't really want to.

The simple reason I can think of is that the politicians who rule or the employees who work in Railways are by no way affected by the number of people who die because of this.  Employees get proper tickets on time, and politicians never travel in trains. Period.

And surely, they have excuses for everything - people are not supposed to travel on doorsteps. Definitely. Not at all. But unfortunately, they do. And they will do. If they don't do it out of instinct, they'll be forced to do it by the hundreds of people who travel in an 80 - odd seater general compartment.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Tatkal woes

Invariably, every Saturday mornings and Thursday mornings we find big queue of tired people in Railway Reservation counters, waiting for Tatkal tickets since as early as 3 am in the morning. The counter opens only at 10 am, and it's a rush of all the frustrated ticket-ambitious crowd. Waiting in a mosquito-haunted city railway station for 7+ hours is definitely not the best thing to do in the morning.

Train tickets are a privilege at least here in South India. For weekends you have to book 2 months in advance, on the very first day when the bookings open, to avoid being in the waiting list, which goes to 300+, every time. 

If Indian Railways wanted either to make better profit or to serve people better, why is this continuing for years? Once in a while, maybe for festival seasons, there can be rush- if demands are not properly analysed and measures are not planned accordingly. But here it's happening every week, at least twice, for years. If this problem can't be resolved without improving infrastructure, then it should be addressed so. It's not a huge risk to invest that much on a project which is a guaranteed hit. Then railways can sell tickets as much as people needs.

They can add more compartments to include more people even on the day of travel, by keeping some extra compartments and engines ready at the starting point. If the engine can't pull the entire new length, use an extra engine. Goods trains are pulled by multiple engines, usually. If adding two big engines is not efficient for additional 200 passengers, develop smaller engines and couple one big engine and one small engine to pull the train efficiently. The small engine can possibly be kept idle most of the times other than starting from standstill or a very low speed.

If tickets are available any time, people can book the ticket on a date when they are almost certain to travel, which will reduce cancellations.

The passengers are to be given importance and facilities should be designed and built to address the needs of customers. Who all wants to travel and are ready to pay for it should be given the tickets, without the premium requirement of planning all the travels at least 2 months earlier or standing in queue for 7.5 hours.

Excuses they make

Govt asked people to save fuel to help falling rupee value.

For travelling 22-23 km to my office we burn fuel for 1.5 hours in Bangalore's broken, crowded roads.

This is called 'excuse', in my opinion. I mean the first statement :)