Is Goa Ready for IT?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

Someone said the other day, why are you after these poor IAS chaps – they after all have to obey your montris or get transferred out. The former finance secretary Ramesh Negi was actually among three secretaries called in by Sheila Dixit, the Dilli CM. The other two names (not from Goa) won't interest you. It's another matter he wanted out for personal reasons. Ravi Naik transferred out Ujjwal Mishra, Goa's de facto ex-top cop because he was Rane's man and therefore a threat. It goes on and on and you could argue whether the IAS has a spine – ex-CS Kiran Dhingra did and was transferred out. But, there you are, what's the point of it all?

Who's the fairest …….

Point is a very learned man (but must stay anonymous) said this: "There was a clarion call made by Dayanand Narvekar about building an IT park with your tax money. Is Goa really ready for this project? There is a lot of hot air generated about the abundance of jobs this will create." Does the IAS ever put up a semblance of a fight even? I can tell you even that Narvekar's and Parrikar's sons studied in the US of A compounding the hypocrisy all round.

Point he made is: are Goans trained to handle this job profile? To that Narvekar said "they will be trained." Well then isn't it the better suggestion to train them first, than build the IT park? Why should the park be built first? That essentially would mean we have an IT park with no Goans to fit the bill. This vaccuum will then be filled by personnel imported from outside Goa while the intended personnel from Goa are presumably trained. But when our Goan youth are ready with the necessary qualifications, what do we do with the original set of workers? To his mind, the charade was a scam with the objective of letting tax money flow where it has always flowed. Down the drain.

Here's another point to ponder. I tried under RTI to get the cost of ridding the Porvorim landslide of all the mud and debris. Unsure, as an ordinary citizen would be, as to which particular division (among the PWD's maze of divisions etc) I did the next best thing and filed on September 30 an RTI questionnaire with the Principal Chief Engineer in Altinho. After being given the usual run around of a minimum of two counters, I landed up at the desk of a woman with braided hair, who disdainfully shoed me away. Till the friendly male next to her intervened and accepted my application. My subsequent investigations revealed the PWD has cleverly not appointed specific Public Information Officers, and as a result, RTI applications are forwarded to a nodal officer, who may or may not then forward your application to the concerned PIO. All other ministries I have run into have clearly identified PIOs. The tourism department even has one each for the south and north! So, await some interesting details in this column, it'll be worth the wait. Talk about delays.

In any other land, the mess would have been cleared in a matter of three months, considering it was plum bang opposite the Secretariat, the seat of power. However, although the landslide occurred last June, till now they are still trying to remedy it. That is all of 15 months! The amount of labour and public funds wasted boggles the mind. Are we to assume the people in authority have no conception of the amount of resources, manpower and time needed to clear the debris? If they did, why did it take so long (and ongoing still)?

Amongst us all…

So, let's go back to the fun of the joystick. Jayshree Raghuraman's flying costs to you between 18 April 2002-12 July 2005 was Rs 7,10,692. Apart from the Dilli routine she flew to France between 14-24 May 2003 (cost Rs 1,65,116). BS Bhalla spent a huge Rs 10,29,720 flying in a rather short period of 14 November 2002- 28 September 2004. He seems to have gone on a world tour in 2003 taking in Berlin (Rs 1,01,145) and Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US (cost Rs 3,73,005). Vijay Madan spent Rs 5,29,627 of your hard money between 14 January 2003-6 March 2005 taking off to US/Canada twice and once to Lisbon incurring an expenditure of Rs 7,43,109. Dharmendra Sharma spent Rs 4,20,099 of his total expenditure of Rs 7,36,633 flying off to Boston in the US. That's more than several other IAS officers spent flying during their Goa tenures.

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A fat bill

Run(away) costs so far;

J P Singh: 2 February 2006-10 October 2007 Rs 17,43,663

RP Pal 11 September 2005-29 October 2007 Rs 8,24,733

JK Dadoo 30 July 2005-7 September 2006 Rs 11,04,312

Total: 36,72,708

Ramesh Negi

The man who was supposed to care for your tax-money because he was the finance secretary actually went ahead and splurged it instead flying 32 times , mostly to Dilli, between 23 February 2006 and 22 November 2007 at a cost to you of Rs 7,80,800. Why do I say cost to you? Because, nowadays corporates assess you while hiring on the basis of cost to company or CTC. In this all the variables like house rent, travelling allowance etc. that your earlier employer paid you are factored in. That's how they decide how much to pay you. This of course is made easy because all corporates have a proper accounting system, well at least of their employees; thus every penny they spend on you is transparent. Wish this could be said for our New Age rulers.

VK Jha

He spent Rs 5,78,395 between 9 April 2006 and 26 October 2007 flying up in the air not flapping his wings but not being the wind beneath your wings either. But what must have taken some doing is the fact that he flew to Chennai between 18 April-12 May 2006 (cost Rs 30,203) and on 9 April, 5 June and 7 June 2006 to Delhi (cost Rs 63,102) returning to base in a hurry only to take off to China between 18-27 June 2006 (cost Rs 1,38,675.) Phew! And at that cost you can bet he didn't fly solo to China. Jha who apparently had a thing for jetting off frequently, flew quickly again, this time to Russia, between 16-27 September 2006. Between 28 April 2006 and 7 May 2007 he flew to Dubai (cost Rs 98,262.) In other words, Rs 3,58,596 of the cost of keeping him airborne was consumed by his foreign trips. And you thought they homed in only on Dilli.

Diwan Chand

He spent Rs 2,95,046 between 9 April 2006 and 26 October 2007 flying only to Dilli.

Santosh Vaidya

Better known for the havoc he and Ramesh Negi as chief election commissioner caused to most candidates caught red-handed for greasing palms in the last election, Santosh Vaidya spent Rs 3,27,105 between 16 June 2006 and 20 July 2007. He flew once to Hungary spending a week at a cost to you (CTY) of Rs 1,65,000. Whatever happened to all those cases though?

The Janson connection

Let's digress a bit. BSNL finally got back on track with its broadband scheme after countless postponements at least in areas it had not covered before or that were not close to its primary exchanges. But the rackets within this government behemoth continue to move forward smoothly. So, when I went to its commercial office in Panjim to hand in my broadband application, a certain clerk sitting next to the entry clerk informed me BSNL had run out of modems, but if I went to a certain Jansons in St. Inez they would sell me the required modem. He then produced Jansons visiting card and gave me the co-ordinates. Any other information you ask on BSNL itself gets stuck somewhere down his throat, but ask him about Jansons in St. Inez and he gushes forth.

Accident waiting to happen

It's official. There is going to be a tragedy in the Mandovi this season. Following one more mysterious overnight entry of yet another casino boat, they are literally lining up waiting for docking space. But where's the docking space? Here's the scene and it could end up looking like a serial pile up on a highway in America you see on your TV screen. The trip incentives barge crew get make them reckless and caused the sinking of at least one barge last year. Just like trucks carrying iron ore whose drivers only look at the trip incentives they can earn and not at the road. There's this huge and wide casino boat made from wood, yes wood, that takes up more space than the others. There are a few more smaller and therefore faster tourist boats this season. The Old Goa jetty, where barges forced out of Panjim now halt, actually trembles every time barges are tethered to it. It shakes and rumbles, believe me. It's all there and like the Scarlett tragedy, waiting to happen.

IAS and the Joystick

Yes, Yes, I know they have that Maharaja-type allowance that is probably as hefty as the old privy purse India's erstwhile rulers were entitled to and Indira Gandhi abolished. But you would expect our New Age rulers to – well, after all, in India they are comparable to the ruling class ie the combination of political class and the bureaucrats. There is of course the moneyed class who control the puppet strings in some way and influence the former. Anybody outside these three classes is the sucker class or the ruled. You would and despite all I have been saying, think that our bureaucrats would at least make an attempt to fly around less. The thought made you a fool, as my teacher was fond of saying. Take a look.

AUTO PILOT
J P Singh
His flying to Delhi mainly between 2 February 2006 and 10 October 2007 cost Rs 17,43,663. That is a lot of flying in a short period. This included Rs 2,44,509 spent jetting to France and Portugal and Rs 3,73,499 to fly to the Big Apple. Some people have their apple and eat it too, if you get my drift. Dare I add, despite 9/11 when the world changed and the Big Apple changed forever, losing two of its symbols of economic power. But for our bureaucrats, economic power comes from the taxes you and I pay.

RP Pal
The Bong with the huge Bang to spend your tax money, spent Rs 8,24,733 flying literally with permission to take off by Ground Control. Because while his brethren could enforce the need-to-fly-to-Delhi clause in their defense of flying to the capital where India's ultimate rulers preside over them, Pal chose instead to fly where he fancied – Sydney and Andamans and like a homing pigeon he headed to Kolkatta frequently. His flying expense included Rs 2,19,719 to go to Sydney. He spent Rs 1,43,600 to fly to Port Blair in the Andamans between 17-18 July 2006, quite obviously with family or friends. Poor Pal, he had to return the same day. That must have taken him some doing because there are no direct flights to the island which was known only for its tribals till the tsunami in 2004 that wrought havoc there. Either that or, the RTI data on the dates is wrong. He also spent Rs 53,519 flying directly to Port Blair returning via Kolkata and Mumbai this time on 22-29 October 2007. Pal returned to the Kolkata he missed so badly, on 6-10 November 2005, on 5-10 December 2005, on 29 March-1 April 2006, on 8-16 May 2006, on 31 August-5 September 2007, 23-24 March 2007 for a day only, and on 30 July-30 August 2007 for an entire month this time, evidently returning only after exhausting his love for the city. These seven trips to Kolkata cost Rs2,23,167 and does not include the one flight from Port Blair to Kolkata. Pal, who recently was in the news for all the wrong reasons, flew 21 times in the time researched 11 September 2005-29 October 2007

JK Dadoo
A former Developement Comissioner and also acting Chief Secretary, he did his damndest to fly to Delhi only billing you Rs 11,04,312. Incredibly the man flew only once between Delhi-Hyderabad and once between Daman-Delhi. Or was it actually credible, because I think Dadoo the Big Daddy of planning holidays abroad was saving up for his flight to Iran between 5-15 November 2005. Cost: Rs 1,01,000. He had Rs 6,77,496 (that's right) to spare to fly off to Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico between 21 April-5 May 2006. The only other foreign frequent flier I can think of as a result of my research is the non –resident or barely resident, Commissioner for NRI Affairs, Eduardo Faleiro. I researched Dadoo's flying habits from 30 July 2005-7 September 2006 and in this short span of 13 months and a week discovered he flew 23 times! The man was barely at his desk preferring the pressurized cabin air of an aircraft to the regulated air (thanks to air-conditioners) inside his own cabin at the Secretariat.

Now consider this. If you factor in Pal's and Dadoo's hotel, internal travel, food, gift and entertainment expenses incurred during their travels, you might seriously want to become Kamikazi pilots–the Japanese WWII pilots who flew their bomb-laden aircraft into allied warships. In a short period (November 2005-May 2006) I also researched his eating habits and Dadoo spent Rs 2,53,271 entertaining government secretaries etc including this huge one; spending Rs 1,20,850 on a farewell dinner for Kiran Dingra (ex-CS) at the Taj Holiday Village on 22 January 2006. Chew on that.

(Next week: More on IAS)

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