When airplanes were not available on the planet, intercontinental travel was the quickest by sea from one port to another. On ships, one would spend two-three months to reach United Kingdom or the United States. Since then the ships have increased the speed and ferry goods over the same distance in a couple of weeks or less. Air travel reduced the time spent on travel but over the last few decades the times taken to travel by air has not declined but in some cases have increased substantially. The speed of aircrafts has indeed increased. But the numbers of passengers the latest aircrafts haul are much higher than it used to be decades back. But the overall travel time did not decline as a result. For, the airlines take more time to screen and load baggage of 4 to 5 times more passengers, the security screening takes more time. Passengers spend more time walking longer distances between boarding gate to the aircraft (sometimes involving a bus trip, between check-in to security check (sometimes involving a sky train trip) and between arrival gate and immigration check. Immigration takes longer time. The aircrafts have to wait in the queue for long before they can speed to take off or wait in the air in the queue for landing. And, more often than not the airlines staff would express regret for delays in departure on account of delayed arrival of the incoming aircraft (as if that makes the delay acceptable and legitimate.
But air travel is limited for most people: highly frequent fliers on flight every other day/ night are a small percentage of people on travel. All have to spend more time moving through the city roads. And, some cities grow and expand to make a bus/car kilometer consume more time rather less time despite widening of roads, construction of flyovers and introduction of metro rails that moves along the surface, above the ground and through the tubes underground. The population of vehicles has been growing at a faster rate than the capacity to deal with their movement over the same distances. My city Kolkata has been struggling with this since my childhood. Travel time does not seem to be capable of reducing: it just expands notwithstanding technological developments for quick transportation. One speeds faster on a tube rail but once has still to walk or ride an automobile to reach the tube stations and get out of them to reach destinations.
A significantly large part of life goes on travel to and from work place in cities. My sons drive for 100 to 150 minutes at an average speed of 100 -120 kms. per hour to and fro work place. This is about 3% to 5% of the total time available in a full year and 20%-30% of the time they spend at the work place. So, now many work a day or two every week from home with their computers and cell phones connected to their colleague network. But my father used to spend about 70 minutes to and fro work place in the 1950s in Kolkata (Calcutta) to cover a distance of about 45 kilometers by bus and electric trams. In the 1970s, the same distance took me initially 105 minutes by bus. It would soon increase to 135 minutes in overcrowded buses negotiating congestion in the peak office time. When the Calcutta tube rail project was under construction, the time taken to cover the same distance increased further. On the onward journey, it took about an hour but the return journey would take more than 100 minutes including standing in the queue to board the more-expensive Minibuses at the Dalhousie Square (now called the BBD Bagh). Thus to & fro office travel would take around 4% of the available hours in a year or about 25%-30% of the time spent in the office.
What a colossal waste of time just for traveling to and fro work! Besides, such journeys would take away a considerable part of the energy and sap the enthusiasm and productivity at the work place.
When I joined Coal India in 1977, another mode of travel became available: chartered buses. I became a member of chartered bus that would not stop anywhere except at three places in the office district unlike public buses and mini-buses would stop at about at 19-20 places for passengers to board and alight on the 22 km route. My cost of travel between office and home more than doubled as a result to give a time savings of 25% in travel time. The chartered us travel was comfortable: you could take a refreshing morning nap (that children usually take) and also have some gossip with the passengers sitting nearby. Also, smoking was not yet banned on privately operated chartered buses. In contrast the travel by bus made it almost difficult to have a nap, especially as a few would get to seat with almost 60% of the passengers standing although the journeys with very little elbow space to do anything other than standing: smoking was banned.
I would leave Kolkata for about two decades in 1982. City would have grown in all dimensions: human population, daily commuting population, population of vehicles, and number of flyovers, new by-passes and new roads. But congestion would continue with peak time travel by any kind of vehicles one would travel (except for those who walk to metro-stations for five minutes) travel for 120 minutes. The congestions seem to be never ending. The City planners have done a wonderful job by ensuring that people continue to spend more or less the same long time interval time in unproductive use and return home from office completely exhausted physically and mentally. More on that later. Before that I have to return to my second commercial organization employer, Coal India's wonder world of management.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Project Black Diamond: My Unfolding Voyage 071
It was the April Fools Day that I met Mr. Asa Singh, a very soft-spoken, rather reserved, yet smiling gentlemen, somewhat short by the Punjabi Sardarji standards, at his office. I was required to meet Mr. Singh, the Chief of Corporate Planning with my appointment letter. I liked him from the very first meeting and felt a feeling of affection flowing from him. We discussed about us, the work ahead and the responsibilities for a while, before he rang up the Chief of Personnel, who would soon send down an officer from his department to enable me to complete the documentation formalities related to my joining as the Econometrician of the Corporate Planning Department of Coal India Ltd., my new employer.
As per the organization chart, my code was C-3 (most departments were denoted by X followed bu a number like 1, 2, 3, etc: in the case of Corporate Planning the symbol was C and my division was 3 and therefore my code was C-3). Mr. Asa Singh told me that Coal India had already prepared a 10 year plan code named as Project Black Diamond. He gave me a copy of that document to read and re-read as much of our work in Corporate Planning would be centered around and related to updating, revising, elaborating, projecting, estimating, reviewing the various aspects covered in this document. He also said that C-1 and C-2 would join the Department to had the other two divisions of technology and finance (till the time I had been with Coal India, no X-1 or X-2 would join).
I was assigned a big room which was earlier used by the visiting consultants from the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. They would be visiting again and again from time to time and would be sitting and discussing with me. One of my tasks therefore was to coordinate the work of the Consultants and follow-up with the implementation of their reports. Eventually, I would happen to be transformed into an in-house consultant.
Soon we would be having a meeting with Mr RC Shekhar, Director Finance of the company and Mr. Asa Singh told me that I have to associate myself with the study on cost of mining coal under Mr. Shekhar supervision. We were about five/ six officers who would be associated with the study. Mr. Sengupta, a chartered accountant and third in command in the finance department was the team leader (Mr. Sengupta would after 25-18 years become the Chairman of Coal India): two of his colleagues, an elderly Cost Accountant and newly appointed MBA (Finance) from IIM Ahmedabad, Mr. Bhowmik would be in the team besides me.
Even as I was trying to settle down to this new environment and trying ti figure out how to productively spend the eight hours in the office, I received a shocking telephone call from the Chief of Staff one morning 20 days after I had joined that the Coal India Chairman has desired to interview me at 3 PM in the afternoon. I was not very clear why the Chairman would interview me after I have joined and not before. I was rather very uncomfortable when I entered his room that afternoon. I was with him for an hour. When I came out of the room I was filled with joy and enthusiasm: I got the impression that the Chairman rated me so high as an asset of the organization and how he has planned my utilization with care and affection. I was completely sold to him. We were three in his room. He, his Executive Secretary, Mr. Mathur, a mining engineer and I. The chairman just asked me questions about me, my family, my education, my previous work experience and so on.
Every answer that I gave to the Chairman's questions was received by him with appreciation, affection and encouragement. His Executive Secretary, Mr. Nagar, had already done some research on me and was telling the Chairman about some articles that were published in the previous one or two months in The Business Standard: he even showed the clippings of my article on Management Information System and Research in Banks. The only question my answer did not receive immediate positive reaction was that I hadn't earlier worked outside Calcutta. That day, I wished that I my next job takes me outside Kolkata: little that I could imagine that this would happen and I would land myself in Mumbai a few years later.
Chairman finally told me that he was instructing the Executive Secretary for my 7-day visit to each of Coal India's (then five) subsidiaries, the Easter Coalfields, the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd, the Central Coalfields Ltd, the Western Coalfield Ltd and the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute. The program of visit would be spread over 10 weeks and would cover besides each company headquarters and Area Managers' offices, six underground mines and 2 open cast mines.
When I came out of the Chairman's room, I felt that I have joined an organization that really values my worth and has real interest in utilizing my skills and potential. I understood for the first time that the army generals really knew how to win hearts of the people they would work with and keep their motivation and morale high. In a few months, I would learn more about managing people from Lt. General Grewal, the Coal India Chairman.
As per the organization chart, my code was C-3 (most departments were denoted by X followed bu a number like 1, 2, 3, etc: in the case of Corporate Planning the symbol was C and my division was 3 and therefore my code was C-3). Mr. Asa Singh told me that Coal India had already prepared a 10 year plan code named as Project Black Diamond. He gave me a copy of that document to read and re-read as much of our work in Corporate Planning would be centered around and related to updating, revising, elaborating, projecting, estimating, reviewing the various aspects covered in this document. He also said that C-1 and C-2 would join the Department to had the other two divisions of technology and finance (till the time I had been with Coal India, no X-1 or X-2 would join).
I was assigned a big room which was earlier used by the visiting consultants from the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. They would be visiting again and again from time to time and would be sitting and discussing with me. One of my tasks therefore was to coordinate the work of the Consultants and follow-up with the implementation of their reports. Eventually, I would happen to be transformed into an in-house consultant.
Soon we would be having a meeting with Mr RC Shekhar, Director Finance of the company and Mr. Asa Singh told me that I have to associate myself with the study on cost of mining coal under Mr. Shekhar supervision. We were about five/ six officers who would be associated with the study. Mr. Sengupta, a chartered accountant and third in command in the finance department was the team leader (Mr. Sengupta would after 25-18 years become the Chairman of Coal India): two of his colleagues, an elderly Cost Accountant and newly appointed MBA (Finance) from IIM Ahmedabad, Mr. Bhowmik would be in the team besides me.
Even as I was trying to settle down to this new environment and trying ti figure out how to productively spend the eight hours in the office, I received a shocking telephone call from the Chief of Staff one morning 20 days after I had joined that the Coal India Chairman has desired to interview me at 3 PM in the afternoon. I was not very clear why the Chairman would interview me after I have joined and not before. I was rather very uncomfortable when I entered his room that afternoon. I was with him for an hour. When I came out of the room I was filled with joy and enthusiasm: I got the impression that the Chairman rated me so high as an asset of the organization and how he has planned my utilization with care and affection. I was completely sold to him. We were three in his room. He, his Executive Secretary, Mr. Mathur, a mining engineer and I. The chairman just asked me questions about me, my family, my education, my previous work experience and so on.
Every answer that I gave to the Chairman's questions was received by him with appreciation, affection and encouragement. His Executive Secretary, Mr. Nagar, had already done some research on me and was telling the Chairman about some articles that were published in the previous one or two months in The Business Standard: he even showed the clippings of my article on Management Information System and Research in Banks. The only question my answer did not receive immediate positive reaction was that I hadn't earlier worked outside Calcutta. That day, I wished that I my next job takes me outside Kolkata: little that I could imagine that this would happen and I would land myself in Mumbai a few years later.
Chairman finally told me that he was instructing the Executive Secretary for my 7-day visit to each of Coal India's (then five) subsidiaries, the Easter Coalfields, the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd, the Central Coalfields Ltd, the Western Coalfield Ltd and the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute. The program of visit would be spread over 10 weeks and would cover besides each company headquarters and Area Managers' offices, six underground mines and 2 open cast mines.
When I came out of the Chairman's room, I felt that I have joined an organization that really values my worth and has real interest in utilizing my skills and potential. I understood for the first time that the army generals really knew how to win hearts of the people they would work with and keep their motivation and morale high. In a few months, I would learn more about managing people from Lt. General Grewal, the Coal India Chairman.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
