This post has been brewing for quite a while actually. Started when I had to go and apply for a family card in order to apply for an LPG connection. I procrastinated as much as I could, dreading the whole process, expecting to be inundated by paperwork and tied up in red tape. But when I actually got there and went through the whole process, I realized that it wasn’t so bad at all. In fact, it was very systematic and perfectly easy, with everyone willing to help.
Of course, I did have all my paperwork in order and took the time to ensure that there were no stupid mistakes. The lines were really long and the waiting was a bit painful, but what else can u expect in a country trying to support more than a billion people (over 4 million of whom are in this city). Most of them were just about legally literate and needed help with the simplest forms. So obviously, mistakes happened and tempers flew all over the place. The people on the wrong side of the counter had to listen to various people telling them how they ought to do their jobs while the whole time, all they’re trying to do is make the slightest dent in that ever growing line in front of their desk and help people get that elusive thing called the ‘Ration card’!
This tiny group of around 20 people has to cater to the needs of all the residents of the huge residential colonies of Madras. They come to work everyday to face the same bunch of forms to be filled and procedures to be carried out. But nine of the ten forms they receive from the complaining public is either incomplete or wrongly filled in. So, every day is basically a battle to educate people who don’t really want to understand the right way to get what they want; to help uncomprehending people who want the strangest requests met - without too much record of it and in the shortest turnaround time. Just like the traffic cops (that’s a whole other post), I certainly don’t envy these guys their jobs. And, not once in any of the 5-6 times I’ve visited the ration office have I ever seen any of the people working there slacking off or just hanging around not doing their job. In fact, if you have filled your application in correctly, they guide you quite effectively and help you get quickly.
I needed the card just for the LPG connection (which would cost double at a private vendor) and as id proof, but the majority of the people standing in the queue with me depend on it heavily for their family’s monthly rations of rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. Sure they should have computerized the system a long time ago. Of course it doesn’t make sense for these poor government employees to sit and write in ledgers and sign hand-written, rubber-stamped pieces of paper. But considering that probably no other country provides these services to its citizens on such a large scale, and that most of the techie geniuses of the country are either abroad or in the big private corporations earning big bucks, who the hell is left to automate and computerize poor little T. Nagar’s ration office? And yet, they have managed to already computerize and in fact, go virtual with the railway ticketing system.
Obviously the government has its priorities right! Most people with the need to travel are educated enough and have the means to go online and book their tickets, apply for PAN cards, electoral rolls... But most people that really need a ration card are the ones that still have no access to the computer; so why bother just yet? If they are going to have problems even when talking to a real live person, there's no guarantee that they could use a computerized system. In the mean time, for the ones with basic street smarts, the system works just fine!
Posts
