Come – Meet – Tea ?

In Dec 1979 , I had defined the role of a Committee as follows :

“ An  anthropologist   discovered  existence   of  'Committees' during the Indus Valley civilization.

While digging at "mohenjo-daro", he  unearthed a room-full of chairs  and  cups of  tea  -  "Come-meet-tea" !

( Since then civilization  has made  great strides  in this  art  of doing nothing, by introducing coffee - it keeps you awake !)

[ source :

https://latterstolntemployee.blogspot.com/2013/07/synopsis-communication-for-productivity_30.html   /   23  Dec  1979  ]

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39 years later , I just came across the following validation of my postulate

Par panel wants Niti Aayog to formulate policy on PSUs' financial health     

Here is what that Parliamentary Panel did :

#   RECOMMENDED

     the Niti Aayog to formulate a policy to regulate and monitor the financial health of the

     country’s PSUs 

#  OBSERVED

    that while CPSUs in a few sectors like mining, power, steel and petroleum & natural gas

    continue to hold a dominant market position , most of their counterparts in other

    sectors have been continuously making losses over the years 

#  CALLED FOR

    optimum utilisation of their assets to generate better earnings 

#  OBSERVED

    that Air India functioned under a large debt burden which became unmanageable and

    increased to gigantic proportion year after year 

#  EXPRESSED

    the hope for completion of the disinvestment process early 

#  DESIRED

    to know the fate of debts and liabilities on the disinvestment of Air India

 

#  CAUTIONED

    the government to analyse all the factors before taking any decision on the merger of

    two CPSUs 

#   OBSERVED

     that they will not be able to compete in the market  unless they are given the desired

     level of independence enjoyed by their counterparts in the private sector.

#   RECOMMENDED

     that the CPSUs' Board must be sufficiently empowered to take all strategic decisions

  

#   SAID

     accountability must be fixed for the Board or concerned ministry or department 

 

#   RECOMMENDED

     that the government should work out a uniform definition or parameters of “ strategic “

     for their classification 

#   RECOMMENDED

     that the performance of the subsidiaries of loss making state-owned firms should be

     thoroughly analyzed

 

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After reading this , it is possible that someone may file an application under RTI Act for following details :

#  Number of government committees / panels ( Active and Passive )

#  Number of Members

#  Number of meetings held and ave no attending each meeting

#  TA / DA paid to the members

#   Ave time extensions granted as against ave specified tenures

#  No of reports submitted / yet to be submitted

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Now , as far as NITI Aayog is concerned , it has been working on the question of SICK PSUs – and what to do with them – for quite some time and not likely to benefit much from the above-listed “ Observations / Recommendations “

It is also possible that the functionaries of NITI Aayog had opportunity to read :

FLOGGING A DYING HORSE    ………………[  28  Feb  1986  ]

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21  Dec  2018

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