Ideas That Have Worked

IDEAS THAT HAVE WORKED

Compiled by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public

Grievances

A summary on

Submitted by:- Chetan Singhal

Sec A, 47PGDIM 16

Introduction

Based on a series of lectures organized by the

Dept. of Administrative Reforms & Public. Reveals how some of the most progressive

minds in India have thought out of the box. Essays by India’s leading industrialists,

statesmen, bureaucrats & social workers. Enlightens about ways to overcome challenges

and development of indigenous & innovative technologies.

1. WHEN CAN I SING A SONG FOR INDIA …?

Dr. A P J Abdul KalamFormer Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government

of INDIA

• Brief description of story

• Challenges and success of India’s Space program.• Dream to action: India launches it’s first satellite launch vehicle.• Birth of a vision to develop India’s own satellite launch vehicle from ISRO by the rocket man of India, Mr. A P J Abdul Kalam.• Identification of areas for improvement a). Agriculture & Food Processing b). Reliable & quality electric power for the country c). Education & Healthcare d). Information Technology e). Strategic sectors

Learning

• Technology is the only tool that can free us from the physical & psychological shackles.• Time has come to emerge from the mindset of a suffering civilization and strive for our destiny as a developed nation.

2. EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT : THE

MUMBAI-PUNE EXPRESSWAYR.C. Sinha

Former Chairman & Managing Director of Maharashtra State Road development Corporation

Ltd.

Brief description of story

• Mumbai-Pune expressway – on the top list of Government of Maharashtra(GoM)• Jan 1997 – R.C. Sinha appointed MD & vice-chairman of MSRDC .• Existent two lane highway b/w Mumbai & Pune insufficient to meet existing & future requirements.• The expressway involved 5 tunnels and estimated to cost about 20 crore.• Basic management strategy adopted for implementation was outsourcing.• Due to lack of funds, investors were approached .• Unit Trust of India subscribed Rs. 200 Crore.• By inviting tenders at a minimal price & government support, amount of Rs.1178 crore was raised by 16th January 1998.

Learning

• It is essential for the head of the organization to ensure close monitoring of the project’s progress under him.• Works of international standards are possible with Indian management, Indian engineers, Indian consultants & contractors & Indian money.

3. GEARING UP TO MOVE INDIA

Dr. R.A. MashekarDirector General, Council of Scientific & Industrial

Research


• Joined National Chemical Laboratory(NCL) in 1976 & became it’s director in 1989.• Tried to change NCL’s age old organisational structure.• Appointed Director-general of CSIR in 1995 and started a national innovation movement.• CSIR was determined to herald change process and attempted to forge an enduring science-business link.• Worked towards creating a climate of improved communication and understanding, fostering faith in mutual growth & developing healthy work relationships.• CSIR’s future agenda: a) To develop a creative, child-oriented educational system. b) Restructure, modernize & debureaucratize universities & R&D institutions. c) Create a massive “demand pull” on the Indian academia. d) Support grass root innovators & conversion into viable business plans. e) Launch a powerful national innovation movement.

Learning • Innovation, Compassion & passion are the essential attributes for institution building .• It is the future that we must focus on but we must draw lessons from our past.

4. TURNING GOVERNANCE TOWARDS

THE FUTURE

N. Chandrababu Naidu


• Andhra Pradesh CM, Chandrababu Naidu discusses his plans for uplifting the economy and the condition of the state.• Today , the knowledge economy & technological supremacy dominate the world unlike the early era where political parties were oriented towards socialism, communism & capitalism.• Knowledge has become the most important factor for determining standards of living & therefore the future is bright for computer-enabled services.• What we envisage for tomorrow is speedy governance that is vision-directed, citizen-focused, globally oriented & e-enabled.• People should be involved in the affairs of the state & should be provided with quality health, education and primary infrastructure. • Development of Women & Children in Rural Areas(DWCRA) and CM’s Programme for Empowerment of Youth- schemes run by the CM.• Have Set up ponds ,tanks and check dams to conserve water. Learning

• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”.• With the mission of debilitating poverty, AP govt. is harnessing the strengths of IT in the most effective way to usher in transparency, efficiency & accountability.

5. FROM A DROP TO A FLOOD

Dr. Verghese KurienFather of White Revolution


• Milk producing farmers face the heat as Polson’s – a milk producing company had the monopoly in Anand,Gujrat.• As milk is a perishable product, farmers had to accept what the contractors paid.• Morarji Desai came to rescue & organized the famous milk strike due to which BMS(Bombay Milk Scheme) collapsed.• Kurein was sent from Tata Steel to Imperial Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore.• In 1949, Kurein was appointed a dairy engineer for the milk cooperative.• Started another modern Dairy –the new Amul Dairy – owned by farmers and managed by an elected board of farmers .• Today there are 170 “Anands” in India, handling 15 million litres of milk everyday in 22 states across India forming a National Milk Grid.• Institute of Rural Management(IRMA) was set up which trains 70 students annually who graduate in MBA , only contextualized for rural development.• Anand produces surplus milk during flush season which antagonizes many advanced dairying countries.

Learning • When you have the combination of the power of the people of India with professional managers, growth is bound to occur.• Anand demonstrates this power assumes greater momentum and clearer direction & everything becomes possible.

6. THE EXPERIENCE OF RUNNING THE INFOSYS

MARATHON : SOME LESSONSN.R. Narayana Murthy

Chairman & CEO Infosys Technologies Ltd, Bangalore

Lessons Learnt in running the Infosys Marathon • Lesson 1: Strategizing success & Organizing human resources.• Lesson 2: Fostering Innovation• Lesson 3: Focussing on shareholders and building trust.• Lesson 4: Cultivating a work force.• Lesson 5: Upholding investor interest• Lesson 6: Respecting the law & Adhering to values.• Lesson 7: Creating Goodwill.• Lesson 8: Going global.• Lesson 9: Excelling and Improving.• Target to be a globally respected software corporation providing best-of-breed business solutions employing best-in-class professionals.• N.R. Narayana Murthy looks forward to create the organization with a value-addition hierarchy rather than a title-based hierarchy.

Learning

• It is possible for professionals to stay back in the country and create wealth & leverage assets and equity legally and ethically.• To put the interest of the pubic or the larger community ahead of the interests of a smaller group or community.

7. THE NTPC SUCCESS STORY : IDEAS VALIDATED

IN ACTIONMr. Rajendra Singh

Chairman, NTPC

About NTPC

• An acknowledged navratna and a potential global giant, NTPC has scaled great heights of overall excellence. • Superb work culture where values of modern-day competitiveness blend with abiding traditions of harmony and human empathy.

Ideas behind the story

• Thinking big & Pushing frontiers• Benefiting Stakeholders & adhering to values.• Planning ahead & developing human resources.

Learnings

• If you perceive a problem as a challenge, it transforms into opportunity.• Quality is an essential mandate in today’s increasingly competitive scenario. • A participatory culture makes employees own their work and results in tremendous synergy.• The strategies of an organization must blend with local realities & global context in order to attain sustainable and meaningful excellence.

8. CREATING SUCCESSFUL SCIENTIFIC

INSTITUTIONSDr. Jayant Narlikar

Director & Homi Bhabha Professor at IUCAA

Scientific Institutions: A Revolutionary Trend

• Science in its present form took off from the times of Isaac Newton , organized science –large group of scientists under one roof – is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century. The Institute of Theoretical Astronomy • Founded in 1966 in the university of Cambridge .• Surmounting the obstacles, understanding importance of students & performance assessment were the constant measures taken for improvement.

Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics: the motivation• Dealt with Nucleation and growth of teaching, research and developmental activities in astronomy and astrophysics in the university sector.• Rules & Bylaws, the campus & Human resource – basic requirements for establishment of a scientific institution.

Learning

• Infrastructure staff is essential to provide necessary support to enable scientists to work without worrying about the working environment.• An institution is successful and justifies its existence only if it is seen to have achieved what it was set up for.

9. CREATION OF WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS : THE RELIANCE PETROLEUM EXPERIENCE

Mukesh AmbaniChairman & Managing Director of Reliance Industries

Ltd. , Mumbai

Jamnagar : the world’s largest greenfield refinery complex

• Large family of 4,500 engineers and managers and 80,000 other workers.• Performance measured by two simple tests: a) Are we able to earn more from one rupee of investment as compared to others in the field ? b) Can we execute a business plan in lesser time than anyone else in the world ?• Reliance has successfully followed the backward integration strategy.• Ideas that worked: a) Challenge conventional wisdom : think “out of the box” b) Be paranoid about productivity c) Get ordinary people to do extraordinary things d) Invest in infrastructure & embrace ecology e) Create confidence in constituencies f) Be better than the best: beat the world g) Convert adversity into opportunity

Learnings• The Jamnagar experience has demonstrated that capital flows where the economic opportunity is right• It will help us to break the vicious cycle of poverty, overcome the lack of resources, accelerate the slow growth & improve living standards.

10. GEARING UP TO MOVE INDIA

Ratan Naval TataChairman, Tata Sons Ltd., Mumbai


• In 1955, Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company, TELCO undertook a programme to develop a new Indian car.• Decided to design a car with the internal volume of an Ambassador, size of Maruti Zen and ease of entering and exiting, particularly for the rear seats.• Settled down to the car : Indica• Nearly 700 engineers who never designed a car earlier worked on the project.• Developed 3,800 odd components, 700 plus dyes and 4000 fixtures.• Entire project cost around 1,700 Crore , becoming the largest project TELCO had ever undertaken.• Established a crash test centre with instrumented dummies and did several live tests on the car.• Got as many as 1,15,000 orders with the initial deposit money.• Cumulative sales of 81,000 cars till then, acquired a 14% market share. Learning • Challenge before India today is something that has still eluded us- to produce a truly “people’s car”• It is important for the younger generation to believe in and recognize the potential of their own capabilities.• We need to help the government make things happen and not turn to it to make it happen.

11. WHAT HAS WORKED IN SEWA : ‘SECOND FREEDOM’

Ela BhattFounder General Secretary, SEWA


• Joined Textile Labour Association, TLA, founded by Gandhiji in 1917• Two things cleared a) 89% of India’s working population was engaged in the informal sector and the self-employed sectors were unorganized, unrecognized and unprotected. b) 80% of India’s women that were poor, rural, illiterate but very active should be playing lead role in the women’s movement.• In 1972, Unionized them into Self-Employed Women’s Association ,SEWA• Women that were unionized suffered poverty and exploitation for lack of access to financial services.• SEWA worked to graduate Indian economy and people into modern era. Measures taken care of: a). Increasing productivity & reaching knowledge b). Access to market and capital & full employment c). Organizational and managerial capabilities for self-reliance. d). Globalization and liberalization

Learning • At the turn of the century, the real questions are to do with the right balance of market and state and how things actually work on ground.• Poor people can make a difference if they organize themselves to defend their rights, take advantage of market opportunities, and protection from risks.

12. KONKAN RAILWAY : RIGHT ON TRACK

E. SreedharanManaging Director, Konkan Railway Corporation


• The Konkan Railway project was a 760-km railway line connecting Bombay to Mangalore along India’s western coast.• The railway line had as many as 93 tunnels, aggregating a total of 835 km.• There were 179 major bridges, totalling a waterway of 21.1 km, and about 8,000 minor bridges of which 300 are road overbridges and underbridges.• Need of the hour a) Bold & innovative funding approach as the project was finacially very attractive . b) Need to setup a special corporation or authority to raise funds for executing the project.• Decided to implement an optic-fiber based telecommunications network which was a great success.• Considering the tight schedule of 5 years , a dynamic and transparent style of project management was done.• Workers were made time –conscious by exhibiting the time available for the completion of the project on a reverse clock.• It was difficult to reach petroleum products , so a departmental store was setup in critical areas.• Even with all these innovations, the project took 7 years to complete as work was a standstill for about nine months but it still was a great achievement compared to international standards.

13. PROSPERITY WITH EQUITY

Dr. S. DabholkarFounder, Prayog Parivar, Kolhapur

Brief description

• Our experience proves that ehile our rural community may be less educated or even illiterate , it possesses a high intelligence quotient.• A new network of learning exchanges develops on its own, from within different groups spread across different places and different walks of life.• All this rests more on deschooling society than other aids, subsidies and promises.• With the self earned and testified science strength, networks develop the capacity of the individual and the community to take calculated risks.• The numerous ventures then generate, in the community , ever increasing and lasting entrepreneurship – the real core of development.• This endangers new credit and goodwill in the community as well as in the network , for further wealth generation and sharing.• Initiations by him: a). Swadhyaya Mahavidyalaya b). Shri Mouni Vidyapeeth Learning • The prosperity that abounds anywhere today is the creation of modern science.• If we can transfer these offerings to the grass root people, they can supplement them with self-learned science to build their own technical literacies and create their preferred type of prosperity.

14. ANTYODAYA APPROACH TO BRIDGING THE GENETIC,

GENDER AND DIGITAL DIVIDESProf. M.S. Swaminathan

Agricultural Scientist, Centre for Research on Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development

Brief description

• Prof. M.S. Swaminathan spent most of his life working on a). India’s Green Revolution b). Effort at poverty eradication, both nationally & internationally

Challenges faced by him• Defending the gains already made by adopting integrated natural resource management.• Extending the gains to areas bypassed by the green Revolution.• Making New gains.• Developing Institutional and infrastructure support.• Increasing rural income.• Restructuring and retooling extension services• Replicating the Biovillage Movement Learning • If demonstrations and testing are organized in the fields of resource-poor farmers , all farmers will benefit.• If women are empowered with technological information and skills, all members of the family benefit.• The Antyodaya pathway should be the bottom line in all development planning and technology dissemination programmes.

15. BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

ORGANIZATION IN INDIA : LESSONS LEARNT

Azim H. PremjiChairman, Wipro Corporation

History

• In 1945, manufactured edible cooking oil under Western India Vegetable Products Ltd.• In 1980, came into manufacturing of computers and became the company with the largest market capitalization in 1999.• Work in domestic market – comm. product design, customer service, telecom services etc. enabled them to work with global majors.Lessons learnt while transforming WIPRO into a world class enterprise• Articulating a powerful vision• Building a strong foundation of values• Continuously striving for excellence• Developing leaders• Innovating for success• Contribution to society Learning • Mobilize your resources and build ability to seek help and advice.• Energize your thinking and the thinking of your team.• Harmonize and resolve conflict; convert resistance into support.• Have the courage to dream and the will to convert dreams into reality.• Like an entrepreneur, build pride in your teams.

16. MAHAKUMBH : A TRYING EXPERIENCE

Alok SharmaSSP Kumbh Mela, Allahabad

Preparations done for Kumbh Mela

• Kumbh mela- mega festival in the hindus, people bath at Allahabad’s Sangam river for purification and facilitating salvation.• To cater to a congregation of 10 crore, 21000 PRA type toilets and 51000 trench type toilets were made.• Team of 200 doctors aided by over 600 support staff and the medical equipments and facilities for over 2.5 lakh patients.• 17,000 street lights were arranged by power workers with back-up arrangements with 36,000 generator sets.• 90 km of motorable chukker plate roads were laid .• All temporary drains were tapped so that waste water could not flow back into the Sangam river.• Close coordination with railway authorities to estimate the no. of people coming .• The telecommunications department provided public telephone booths with STD & ISD facilities.• Adherence to traffic management to avoid stampedes, accidents, drownings etc.

Learning • We must make proper and methodical arrangements for media coverage & photo.• We must also plan for increased no. of vehicles so that it may be possible to hold the Kumbh mela at the same place after six years.

17. MAKING SANITATION OUR

RELIGIONDr. Bindeshwar Pathak

Founder, Sulabh Shauchalayas Sansthan

Brief description

• Nuisance of stinking dry laterines and the absence of toilet facilities led to the thought of an environmentally safe, affordable and easy-to-adopt toilet technology.• Sulabh Shauchalaya: A Technical breakthrough• It fulfilled the seven necessary conditions laid down by WHO.• Technology suited to rural areas would be appropriate for urban centres as well.• With good maintenance a Sulabh toilet can last for over 100 years.• It can be constructed in a hut, a verandah or courtyard etc.Winning Methodology & Social marketing• Pay –and –use community toilets• Holistic approach to sanitation• Bioenergy from human waste• Waste water treatment• Sulabh Thermophilic Aerobic Composter(STAC)• Social Engineering• Quality education to the poor

Learning • We were committed to giving our sanitation programme the shape of a movement and have worked hard to provide basic infrastructure & R&D.

18. MAKING A DIFFERENCE

S.R. RaoChairman , Vishakhapatnam Port Trust


• S.R. Rao entered Surat after 1994 plagueand joined as an urban governance manager.• Condition of the city was really bad as it had recently been affected by plague and the infrastructure was not truly formed.Steps Taken To Curb the Menace• Delegation for efficiency• Budget allocation for different sectors• Outsourcing for streamlining• Transparency, dissemination & monitoring• Rewards and disciplining• Setting Priorities• Harnessing Resources• Inculcating Accountability• Standardizing process & Accelerating results

Results • Surat’s morbidity rate came down by 75%• SMC distributed free or subsidized medicines through its own hospitals a great deal of public expenditure on medicines was curtailed.• Surat had more productive members in its workforce – both men and women.

19. PANI PANCHAYAT : BASIS FOR SUSTAINABLE

RURAL DEVELOPMENTVilasrao Salunkhe

Social worker for water-conservation


• Being involved in advanced engineering 1960-72, Vilarsao Salunkhe knew the problems of rural India.• Maharashtra had witnessed a serious drought and 50 lakh people were looking for livelihood as both rabi & kharif crops were failing.• He convinced collector about the benefits of undertaking small water conservation works in 10-15 villages.• With irrigation support, the yield leapt from 10 quintal to 100 quintals.Pani Panchayat Schemea)Irrigation schemes are undertaken for groups of farmers , not individualsb) Cropping patterns were restricted to seasonal cropsc) Water rights were detached from land rights.d) All community members were given right to water-a common resource.• Based on philosophy that water belongs to all living beings and animals.• We must develop sustainable land-water community management for greening all Indian villages within the next five years.

Learning • Rural development through community empowerment is a prerequisite for improving the living standards of the people of India.• We must proactively tackle the related issues and challenges.

20. BRINGING PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS TOGETHER

SUCCESSFULLYDr. Rajendra S. Pawar

Chairman of NIIT


• NIIT , formed in 1981, with the idea that was brewing and taking shape in the mind of Dr. Rajendra Pawar while he was working with HCL Technologies.• NIIT focussed on bringing people and computer together by:a) Leveraging technology and use of computers successfullyb) Training the individuals who they felt could be made trained

professionals. Challenges faced1). To gain social Enterprise.2). To construct a business model which was both profitable and affordable.3). Delivering it across their area of operations in 27 countries.Achievementsc) Delivery Innovation d) Technological Innovatione) Product Innovationf) Curriculum Innovationg) Networking Innovationh) Financing Innovation

Learning •India has the potential and the will to build the digital bridge for the world.• If anything , we would be the first in ensuring that the digital divide, which the world sees as a looming threat , becomes a great opportunity for India.

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