Operations Research and Governance

Operations Research is used by engineers and managers to take decisions. It is also called management science. All and sundry decisions are helped by the analysis made by these techniques. Ofcourse, hunch or intuition is also important.

One of the basic principles of life is also used in OR. It is the 'objective', called the objective function there. You do according to what you need. So if you need pickle, you cut the mango and dry it; and if you need jam, you squeeze it, and store it with sugar.

Any decision has to be taken keeping the key objective in mind. The objective may be formed of various parts. Like, a tasty achar for you might be khatta meetha, for me, teekha and khatta. But you do for what you need. Big systems are built this way. So when you design a big metro system, or air transport, the first study to be done by the managers is of the requirements. Requirements of the users, the environment, the stake holders( investors) etc. It is said that the more thorough the study of requirements is, the better the system becomes. As time passes, the system is evaluated again and again. Additions and subtractions are made. All to make each party agree. This way, key projects, like the Delhi Metro come up to be beautifully done.

Yet, in Indian governance, there is no single objective. And hence, what should be happening is not happening.I will illustrate my point. In all discussions of policy in India, the people consulted are: 1. Officers 2. Politicians. There is never talk of regular people being a part of the requirements analysis. A point made regularly by politicians is that people in India are anpad. But that is part of the requirement analysis. Or, it is a part of the problem statement, not an excuse to run a some-o-cracy. A real manager would take this into consideration and devise a way in which she would convert the needs expressed by illitrate people into debatable solid points.

An example:

In a rural area, there are families which do not mind there Kutcha huts. There real need is water. But ho and behold and the centre passes the Rajiv Gandhi Grammen Awas Yojna. The collector is told that you must build houses for the poor, because someone is coming for an inspection. While in most other places funds are diverted, or eaten up, here, houses are built. The VIP comes and goes, and some days later you find that the villagers have kept cattle in those houses. The villagers did not need it, but they were built them.

Similarly, schools do not see what needs of life are before embarking upon education. Result: Children are not taught about insurance, banking, ESIC, basic labor laws, or abour reservation. In schools out of which most would go out to do manual labour, these are out of curricula.

A democracy is meant to be representative of the needs of people. It is people who are vested with the power of right thought and action. But here in India, we are never listened to, our voice is of no value. While we should be asked regularly about our needs from transport, education, health, and other key needs, we never are asked. Do you think that the officer or politician working on transportation would have ever used a local bus or train himself/ herself.

So those of you, who talk about China and say that its a communist regime and ours democratic, youre living in an illusion. India is no democracy, no one is listened to here, no policy is made after consulting the very people effected by it, no policy is changed according to you. All you do is listen to dhol-magade during election time, and cast your vote for someone you know is hopeless.

May change come, and may we be the ones to bring it.