The sight of thousands of people, mostly women and the elderly, in a near-stampede situation at a taluk supply office in the state capital, beamed across television screens, was at the same time both shocking and shameful for a state that prides itself in its high literacy rate and IT skills. And it was a commenatary on the indifference with which the state's babudom viewed the common citizen.
The crowd that gathered at the Neyyatinkara taluk supply office under a scorching sun was anxious about being deprived of food grains and subsidies; they – the poorest of the poor – thought it was their last chance to get the numerous mistakes in their new ration cards corrected.
TV channels showed people fainting and women yelling at officials – a near anarchic situation which can be blamed on a total lack of sensitivity and lack of application of mind by government officials. Here were citizens of a highly progressive state jostling with each other for correcting errors at the last moment in an important identity document – despite a long-winding process that offered as much as three years to do it.
To put plainly, it was bad planning and mismanagement of manpower and time right from the top. And sheer insensitivity to the troubles of the common people.
The bulk of the blame for the problem can be laid at the door of the previous UDF government. Here is a quick look at what went wrong, which could help the government ensure officials don't bungle again and those responsible are held accountable.
1. Though it is said that the process took three years, officials in the supply department say that there were huge gaps between each step and the government often issued orders asking them to finish tasks in a short period, without giving enough time to cross-check data and ensure data integrity.
2. The public distribution department conducted one-day camps across the state to enter beneficiaries' data. Each camp was meant for beneficiaries of two ration shops, meaning large queues and crowds and increasing the possibility of wrong data being input.
3. As complaints and news reports about how the one-day camps were turning concentration camps for the public, the officials were, according to sources, asked to finish off the process of data entry at the earliest without spending too much time on each card. The result: the data entry process – unarguably the most important step in the whole process – turned into a sham. Some officials said that the order to speed up the process came from the previous minister's office, which if true, shows a level of insensitivity alien to Kerala and the people who hold public office.
4. It is also alleged that the district collectors' stance that volunteers of Akshaya centers and Kudumbashree units must be included in the team of data entry operators complicated things. The task should have been entrusted with government agency C-Dit alone, say officials; C-Dit could have given proper training to qualified volunteers.
5. The government made another mistake by arguing that Akshaya workers will not be paid for correcting the mistakes they made while entering data. The Akshaya workers, in turn, argued that they would only correct the mistakes and not enter additional data, if not paid. All these caused delays and confusion.
6. Panchayat members, who are in touch with the local people, should have been taken into confidence and entrusted with the task of submitting proper data about each family; instead officials were asked to sort the data and prepare the lists.
7. It is argued that teachers could have been assigned with the task of enumeration of data in order to make the process error-free.
8. The government's act of not paying for the computers and other equipment used for data entry put a financial burden on officers and demoralized them. Some officials allege this led to corrupt practises as well, with officials trying to push the burden on to ration-shop owners.
All this could have been avoided had the government and officials concerned planned everything properly and learned the from mistakes committed at each step – a task they are paid to do.
Clearly, this is not something that could have happened if three things had been done: proper planning, leveraging of Kerala's superior IT know-how and infrastructure, and use of volunteers – an easy choice in a state where there is a high level of volunteerism.
But the fact is no one was concerned, and no one was held accountable – despite the taxpayer money they drew as pay every month.
The government has now extended the deadline for rectification of errors to November 5. It's anybody's guess what the officials, with their record of mismanagement and apathy and with no stick to correct their mistakes, will achieve in just a few days when they could not do it in three years.
Cry, Kerala, cry.