Vizag's incredible treadmill

Vizag’s incredible treadmill

Sohan Hatangadi

TOI dated 28 August 2016

If you notice that the most plans announced by the government for Vizag really doesn’t get executed. Enthusiastic government officials and political leaders announce project as soon as it pops up in their minds and the Press, hungry for some juicy news, goes to town announcing every outlandish plan with great relish. We the readers are also quite optimistic and believe everything in print. The minute we read the news, being proud Vizagites, we put it out on FB and WhatsApp and give the impression that it is really happening. This is indeed good for the wellbeing of our citizens who are always buoyed by good news however far it is from reality. Researchers are studying why only a small teeny weeny percentage of ideas actually get implemented and their findings are quite revealing. I therefore decided to meet the leading experts on the subject.

Alphabet number 22

I walked along the long corridors of the aging academic building that housed the office of Professor Y. U. Wuree. His spectacles were on the tip of his nose and his bushy eyebrows were in perpetual questioning position. I started by asking him why there was such a gap between promise and delivery from our government particularly for Vizag. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously, and opined in his professorial tone: “One of the reasons of course is that the word ‘Vizag’ or ‘Visakhapatnam’ starts with a ‘V’ he said. Everyone knows that all lists are read in alphabetical order. So when it comes to funding time, after they have gone through the 21 alphabets that appear before ‘V’ there is never enough money left in the kitty to finance Vizag. Also our city has the propensity to be missed quite easily.  You will notice that in all the drop-down menus for booking flights and stuff we are always at the bottom. When the graphics showing city-wise temperature on some national TV channels the camera pans several cities but flies past over Vizag going directly to Bhubaneswar. It is quite obvious that Vizag’s anonymity index is quite high”.

Anonymity index? What is that?

“Well as you know some people have grey personalities. They are quiet and may be standing next to you but you will not notice them. Some develop this quality after much practice – for example some of the best secret agents in the world train hard to become anonymous. They can walk into a high security area and no one will see them. Some people are anonymous by nature, for example our ex PM had this amazing quality. Just like people some cities are also anonymous by nature. Vizag has somehow acquired that quality. No one seems to be noticing us. We miss out on everything … capital city, railway zone, NIPER, IIFT, IIP, IIPM and so on. If you apply a complex set of equations and run it through a computer you will come out with an index for anonymity. Vizag scores very high in this area. In fact we require a special instrument landing facility so that aircrafts approaching Vizag just don’t fly past us and go off to Vijayawada”

Dreaded pass-d-buck-ites.

“Next reason is that the executives posted here develop severe and chronic ‘pass-d-buck-itis’, a dreaded disease that prevents any decision from being taken and anything from being done. All decisions must come from the topmost person in the hierarchy. When members of the public ask what is going on we are either confronted by a wall of secrecy or offered a few phrases to explain the status of proposals. Phrases such as ‘it is in RFQ’ (Request for Quotation), ‘we have asked for a DPR’ (Detailed Project Report), ‘OGK’ (Only God Knows) and ‘NIOH’ (Not in Our Hands). Many experts have identified another reason as to why nothing progresses. It is known as the “the treadmill syndrome, officials rush hither and thither, huffing and puffing without really going anywhere, indeed it is necessary to appear busy rather than get things done”. The professor stopped, he rolled up an important looking scientific paper and swatted a fly on his table with consummate skill. I took that gap to ask him the next question.

What do all of them do?

“Professor, what exactly does all the staff do?” I asked. He smiled as an adult would react to a childish question. “My friend” he explained in a patronising tone, “the purpose of these departments and executives are not really to take up and complete any tasks. The purpose is to provide employment to a large number of people. Obviously they must appear to be busy. Much like a juggler first throws up one ball into the air, followed by two, three and four, five and six. He keeps them all bobbing around in the air till the audience is mesmerized. They stop following any single ball … everything is a blur. Similarly in local governance there must be hubs, belts, zones, regions, corridors and clusters to be announced every day to keep the public happy. They must announce sea water swimming pools, helicopter rides, cruise terminals, festivals of all types, and other projects of great importance on a daily basis to keep us all charged up. Some people suspect that there is a secret department that dreams up these projects daily”

Meeting sheeting

By now I was quite alarmed. “Sir”, I ventured “surely it is not all so bad, is there any other soluble reason for the stagnation of our city?” His bushy eyebrows furrowed, he rang a bell and signalled his office boy to fetch two cups of tea. He took a call on his mobile; it appeared like he was speaking to someone superior. After the call he fumed “Meetings! Every few days Vizag is favoured by some meeting or other! Senior officials and public figures come down from Hyderabad and everyone is invited. Their designations look like a bunch of alphabets drawn from a pouch, much like we do in the game of Scrabble”. I pictured what he said and felt somewhat better. I was pretty good in Scrabble. The tea came in and there was a few seconds of silence before he said “At these meetings several people with bundles of brown files tied with strings sit around the perimeter trying to camouflage themselves. There are much discussions and it feels like it has all been said before. A novice would expect great things to happen after the session but it doesn’t.  However much like the pride we feel even when we get two medals from the 117 sports persons sent to the 2016 Rio Olympics, we must also be proud when from the hundreds of promising ideas every month a couple come to fruition”. With that Prof Y. U. Wuree rose from his seat and gathered some brown files … apologetically he announced “sorry I have to rush off for a meeting”.