International machines in national hands Ever since globalization has taken place in the 80s so many international class

of cars , equipments & other items have reached our country. To be precise we have the best of the world set up here in our country. Just take the set up of a power plant. We have the best boiler from USA, we have the best turbine from Germany, we have the best offsite equipments from Holland or other countries but when all these equipments are run by the national people we get the worst efficiency of the world besides having bad working conditions. The same machines when run by the foreign nationals or on a foreign land everything improves. A close observations points this to the poor cultures which comes down all the way from the top of the hierarchy and it hardly ever gets rectified. Of course there are extra ordinary organizations who are really word class. When I look at our daily life I find the same hands of culture create havoc. Here are a few mixed examples. Coal Handling Plant (CHP) : It carries coal for burning into the boiler. The coal handling plant always gets littered by coal dust and particles. For taking care of flying coal dust there are coal dust suppression system but in most of the organizations I find it is not working. People also don't bother to maintain these dust suppression systems which are fitted all over the CHP. The mediocre culture accepts that coal dust should be there always. Opposite of which is not possible. Whereas go to USA or Korea you'll find that these dust suppression systems are the most healthy equipment of the entire CHP which keeps the environment neat and dust free. Funny thing is that the machines are the same. Country of 1 billion: Loves to make shortcuts keeping others stranded in the queue. But what happens when the main system is shortcut ? So for meeting the dead line of boiler light up , hundreds of contingent arrangements are made. Temporary cables are laid up in huge quantity wherever possible. Perhaps the dead line is meet. Claps are received but later the trouble starts. The system starts running on contingent arrangements. The contingent arrangements starts failing one after another resulting in undue outages and poor performances. It's the culture the way people think and act to be changed first. Here are some from the daily life ......... The Bandra-Worli sea link: It's a world class sea link connecting between Bandra and Worli. The lighting, decoration and the ambiance all along the bridge is just superb and world class. The 5 km stretch bridge has speed restriction all along the way. At the beginning and at the end the speed is restricted to 30 kph. In between it is 40 kph and at the center stretch it is 50 kph. The speed signal is displayed all along the way without

any break. But except a few idiots nobody follows this speed restriction. People drive away in 60 ..70..80 ..100 kph speed. Either they don't understand the traffic rule or they simply don't care to follow. I take the 2nd one. It is the national people driving on international bridge. Shutters down of foreign cars: When do you find a brand new BMW's window shutter is down on a Mumbai road ? When the man needs to spit . He spits on the road and then lifts the shutter and then quickly speeds away. Perhaps his girl friend or wife or a friend is sitting beside but it doesn't matter. Behind the wheel of his super duper car gives him more aura of power and elegance. It's national people inside international car. Marine Drive: This beautiful promenade is stretched all the way from Trident hotel upto Girgaon beach. The 5 / 6 km curvature is beautifully lined with sitting arrangements & thick parapet walls all along . When there is high tide the sea water splashes on the walls of the marine drive. The view looks superb and un-parallel. In the night the lights all along the curvature looks like a majestic ring. However, a close look on the benches reveals that all the seats are very dirty and glitches of dirt are sticking everywhere. The reason being people use this seats as foot stand while they sit on the parapet wall. It's the same national people never bother to remove the shoes while climbing the benches. Galleria at Powai: The posh arcade shopping plaza of Hiranandani at Powai. In front of the complex there is a half circular beautiful lawn where six fountains are situated. All six fountains has powerful spot lights from side. Watching these beautiful fountains on summer evening is just superb and cool. However, on any other day it can always be found that some of the lights are not glowing or not directed properly. Sometimes all six lights don't glow. The man responsible for maintaining these lights is certainly a national man. He just doesn't believe in perfection and excellence in culture. JJ flyover: It's one of the largest & busiest flyovers in Mumbai which runs amidst dense buildings. It's a superb engineering feats to have such a serpent like flyover so big amidst so thick city lines. To get rid of noise pollution , sound barrier strips are lined up both sides all along the flyover. But people in collusion with BMC use these sound barrier plates as the neat place for putting up their advertisements. Lots of talks have been made earlier to clear out from these sound barrier strips but even today almost 50% of the sound barrier strips are covered with advertisement from 'matrimonial' to 'easy loans' . It's the same national people in the international frame.

Toronto Delhi AI 188 flight: At Toronto it's all systematic , disciplined but when it lands at Delhi it's different ! Even before the announcement is made for getting down it's the national people who jumps open the overhead lockers, some even pushes ahead to get off before others. It's a very familiar national scene only this time with national people on board international flight !

Santosh talkie at Hyderabad: I still remember this talkies where I saw a Telegu movie 13 years ago. That was just a time pass first time in the Hyderabad city. But the all air conditioned talkie (5 years old by that time) was so neat and clean that it surprised me all the way. It was a two story hall - 35 mm screen lower hall and a 70 mm screen upper hall. The seats were plush, cozy and immaculately clean and not a single piece of thrown out tickets , papers , chocolate wrappers was found on the floor. Every bits of paper was neatly cleaned away by the sweeper. It had a roof top garden that time. The garden was more surprise I could not find out a single dead leaf lying on the floor of the garden. International class no doubt ! Some hyderabad MP was owner of it and he was frantic about that talkie. His desires and likeliness had set the tune of culture for it. I don't know the sate of that talkie today but one thing for sure the culture comes from top and if the top wants honestly the culture prevails even in national hands. More so later... S. Bera Powai