Mint, the newspaper, asked citizen’s opinion as to what should be done after the Mumbai Terror attacks. A huge number of suggestions were received.
According to me, we should use the Paretos principle or the 80/20 rule to resolve our problem. This simply means that we focus on the vital few actions which will give the maximum results and not the trivial ones.
I believe that the root cause of our problems are as follows:
- (a) Ineffective law and order
- Rampant corruption in all aspects of law enforcement
- Untrained police force with practically no investigative capabilities
- Inefficient (and as reported in the press even corrupt) judicial system which takes a long time to decide legal cases
- (b) Total lack of accountability (Here I am referring to the total failure of the government machinery).
- (c) Faulty decision making criteria which ignores the “Citizen,” who is the true owner of the country. The correct decision making criteria – All decisions should be made in the best interest of the “citizen owners,” that is, the people of the country.
Let me briefly discuss the above. Now you can take any problem that we have in the country and it will ultimately caused by one or more of the causes listed above. I will take the simple example of potholes not being filled on Delhi roads leading to death, traffic jams and waste of valuable resources like oil and time of the people.
Ineffective law and order
Resources allocated to do the job are being siphoned off through corruption. There is law against corruption. So why don’t we implement the law? Why don’t we prosecute them?
Total lack of ACCOUNTABILITY
We all know why potholes do not get filled? The people responsible for filling up the potholes are not doing their job. Why can’t we hold the people who are responsible for maintaining the roads accountable? If they cannot do the job, lets remove them. Same people and same systems keep doing the same thing again and again. Nothing happens. What is so difficult about filling up potholes? Our politicians cannot organize filling up of potholes and they want to convert everything into World-class. I think we deserve what we get if we believe that.
Faulty Decision Making criteria
The citizens of the country and the country as a whole suffers when potholes are not filled. They lose precious resources such as oil when potholes are not filled. Productivity declines because we waste a lot of time in traffic jams. Some citizen owners have even died or suffered injuries because of potholes. So is somebody in the government even paying attention? I doubt it. If the government was concerned about the country or the “citizen owner,” immediate action would be taken.
