Mock Committe Role: My Unfolding Voyage 074

My little sons were growing up fast Jhupa has already started talking in our language and Chupa was picking up words here and there. I bought a Phillips audio recorder player. I started recording their voices, my wife's Rabindra Sangeet renderings and my father's Prayer in Sanskrit (Chandipath). This piece of instrument would soon have yet another application that I never imagined when I had acquired it.

A Parliamentary delegation would be meeting Coal India's Chairman and top officials soon to discuss the company's performance and problems especially those related to coal costs, pricing, subsidies and marketing arrangements. Chairman called a meeting of Directors, senior officers and some select specialists like me. He discussed the subjects of interest to the visitors and then arranged some mock Committee sessions. Along with the Director Finance I was part of the three members mock Parliamentary Committee and all others present were assigned the role of responding to the questions asked by the members of the Committee. The mock committee sessions continued in the Chairman's presence for three successive days. Many senior officers were very angry with Chairman's selection of a recent recruit like me on the Committee to ask questions to them. I understood why Chairman had selected me: first, I would be as much close to members of the Parliament as possible given my lack of knowledge about the Coal Industry and Coal India to be able to come out with dumb and awkward questions out of ignorance so that the management can get prepared to deal with them, and second, provide me with a quick opportunity of picking up knowledge. But the senior managers felt offended that I was asking questions to them.

At the end of three mock sessions, Chairman selected me to prepare a detailed note on the relevant subjects based on the learning at the mock sessions and allotted three different officers to help me get further material as may be necessary. In about four/ five days, I prepared the draft notes. These were circulated to select senior officers, discussed in a meeting at Chairman's office and I was told to finalize the Notes and prepare a booklet to be given to the visiting Parliamentary members. I received excellent encouragement, cooperation and appreciation for my work from seniors during this period: people had started accepting me.

Once that was completed, Chairman called me and assigned me the task of presenting the subject matter of two of the notes to the visitors with slides (PCs were yet to come to Indian offices in 1977. After two days, Chairman asked me make the slide presentation to him giving me just 10 minutes. I did as desired by him and then he asked me if I had a Tape-recorder at home. I had the one recently purchased. He advised me to rehearse the 10-minute presentation in the front of a mirror at home and getting it recorded, listen to the recording carefully and improve in the subsequent rehearsal. That was a great lesson that I had picked up then: the military forces give so much to rehearsing in simulated war conditions!

Two days before the event, Chairman instructed me and some others to visit the Rotunda Hall in the State Secretariat (Writers' Building) to do a kind of stage rehearsal with presentations equipments. The actual went off well. I got two special increments in salary on the recommendation soon: though Chairman had recommended for six increments, the personnel department pointed out that the Chairman's powers were limited to only two. Chairman was a little disappointed. He would soon suggest to me that I write articles for the journal published by the subsidiary CMPDI. I wrote probably two articles for the journal in the next one year.

But soon this Chairman would have to go. The political party that ran the Central Govt. and appointed Lt. General Grewal as the Chairman would lose the elections. The new Government would like to have someone else who would listen to the commands of the Coal Secretary and act less like a leader of all employees and miners of the Coal India. The subsidiary company chairmen, all from within the coal industry, did not like to be commanded by a former military General. Government had already constituted a special committee to evaluate the performance of Coal India and suggest measurers for improvement. When the Baveja Committee report was sent to Coal India for comments, I was given a copy of this. I prepared a point by point rejoinder on the Committee’s findings and gave it the Chairman. He was pleased with my note but had probably no intention to fight back as he was anticipating an ouster. He told me to get my note edited and publish in the Newspaper op-ed column. I arranged that in the name of a special correspondent.

But before the Chairman changed, my directed bosses changed a number of times. The first boss, Mr. Asa Singh, having worked for long in the private coal mining sector found it difficult to work in the public sector environment dominated by personnel from the erstwhile public sector coal company, the National Coal Development Corporation: he resigned to start his own business in Auragabad. For about a month, I was forced into the cabin vacated by Mr. Asa Singh to directly head the corporate planning department for a month. Then I had to shift my office again to report to the next boss, the Chief Mining Engineer in charge of coal production activity monitoring at the Coal India headquaters. He admitted that he had no idea as to what corporate planning he should engage me in and left it to me decide whatever I would like to do. But he spend at least an hour every week discussing with me on various subjects and showed some affection towards me.

After a few months, an experienced mining engineer, Mr. Kapila from the coalfields got transferred to the headquarters to head the Corporate Planning Department. He was there for about five months but met me not more than three/ four times. I has started working out my own areas of activities: writing speeches and articles for the Chairman, acting as consultant to the Director Finance and the Deputy Chief of Finance on special projects, have brain-storming sessions with young MBAs in the marketing department, collaborate with CMPDI economist, Dr. Guha, on specific planning assignments, attending various training programmes and conferences as the Chief of Management Development Department considered me free for such assignments and occasionally deliver speeches on behalf of the new Chairman when he had to be away on other important assignments. It was all good time but I felt I was not getting utilized properly. I tried to get alternative jobs: a cement company Chairman in Calcutta needed an economist but the company was not willing to spend much on the economist’s pay.

A permanent Chief of Corporate Planning would soon join after the new Chairman; a former Tata group coal mines manager, assumed office. Mr. Mishra, the new boss was a serious but pleasant boss with intellectual orientation. He had earlier worked with the new Chairman when he was the Chairman of the subsidiary Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. Mr. Mishra was quiet affectionate and encouraged me to work on various assignments that he would bring as well as those I had felt I should be working on. But equally interesting were gossip sessions with very interesting and experienced observers within Coal India: these sessions brought out various aspects of management in Coal India.