Project Sansad Makeover

Proposal: Project SANSAD MAKEOVER
Project Manager: TBD (Will be decided based on responses analysed from a web based survey of all educated and tax paying Indians)
Version 1.0, 21/06/2009
Author : ANP
Draft: To be Approved (again, from the web survey results)

BACKGROUND / INTRODUCTION

"Our political system stinks!", "What can we salaried class people do?" As a country, we've encountered multiple roadblocks to cut down the red tape, remove the long bureaucratic waits. We continue to grease palms to get our sarkari work done. Now here's a plan that's hot and cool enough to appeal to most of my card-swiping, ear-plugged, commuting workers as well as my enterpreneur friends. The chances are grim, but some politicians may also actually like it. Like all plans this has begun as a high-level plan. And will gradually get detailed over time and hopefully implemented with some venture funding. ;-) The promise of this scheme is huge and it will work once we decide that we cannot continue to live with stains on the ideals and visions laid down for this sovereign Republic.

AS-IS PROCESS

In the olden days, where we saw our leaders running like possessed puppets in black and white films, we needed representatives of the people to congregate at one place, put forth their perspectives and raise concerns on behalf of the people scattered across the length and breadth of the nation. The constitution, our laws and Acts (with some copy-paste from the Queen's files) got bound between the covers. These worked fine when the motivation was national patriotism and a fresh sense of victory found from bidding good bye to the English rulers. bhopale.blogspot.com Times have changed, situations have changed and of-course technology has rapidly advanced. (Second to rise in the income-tax levels though.) But our decision making capabilities as a nation and our drive to make quick and correct decisions based on updated state-of-the-art information is still far from desirable. Merely broadcasting the house proceedings on television - few uproars, several yawns and frequent walk-outs - is excellent abuse of technology.

BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS

With the smart cards, internets and electronic payments of utility bills etc., there is absolutely no need for full-time paid representatives any longer. Pack them off... to (serve) their respective constituencies. The whole country is now fully conversant with the "phone a friend" concept and a response profile. Million thanks to Star-Plus, Amitabh-ji, Anil Kapoor and also Salman for teaching us how decision making can be 'democratic' without having someone killed. And everybody liked Abhishek doing a "What an Idea, sirji !", right? Our country has abundant passionate, educated people and tax paying people. THEY need to be influencing the decisions if we have to prosper. Not the sons and daughters of rigid brained, fat and bald politicians who claim to fame was acting in regional films before we were born. Politicians who never fade away need to be replaced with techno-savvy dynamic governance taskforces with strategic, tactical and operations mindset and responsibilities. Decision making must be near real-time and must directly involve the tax payer and the literate populace based on their earned miles.

CHANGE... TRANSITION... PARIVARTAN: DESIGN

The plan proposes a one-time cleanup and an operationalization. Like we do for IT systems. The old is simply fired, to make way for the leading edge. The plan also envisages a complete ops team, standard ops procedures, Change management, Key Performance Indicators and Service Level Agreements. That's what it's going to take to breath some pollution free (also corruption free) air in this country. These are some salient features of the approach: Ministries become Operational function areas. There are no ministers, because there are no kings. Only Portfolio Planners, Project Managers, and Operations teams providing measurable service including a "Governance" service. The Parliament does not exist in the format it does now. It consists of a strategic team (thinkers and respected personalities from different streams directly elected by citizens) and no more than say 50 or 60. That's right. No money to pay for fat. This taskforce is supported by an IT team around 30 to 40 persons to facilitate decision making value and to prevent malpractices and attempts to de-stabilize the lean structure. Service Levels, for each function, are drawn for services to be provided by the Government (e.g. electricity, water, education, health care, jobs, network connectivity etc.) The present day Voters List is dropped. No need collecting information, photographs of lachaar (helpless) old men and women who are photographed while they are carried to the polling booth each year. There's a new list of 'People Decision Makers' drawn from various sources including the income tax division. This is a classified list that with people 'weighted' against their EDUCATION and TAX history. People with a career in the National Services get a little more weightage and people with criminal backgrounds are barred from the list. Note that there is no influence of geography, age, religion, caste, gender etc. while defining this list. The more you contribute to the Government or the more you are educated, or both, the more influence you could exert. This list, naturally is revised each year. Line of thought: Unless an individual is in a position to add value to himself, he cannot think right for the country. Every issue is categorised (e.g. 'suburb', 'city', 'district', 'region', 'national', 'global' scope) such that questionnaires can be distributed to relevant subsets of people from among the larger list. e.g. Should non-residents be included in this 'voters' list? If they have paid tax to the Government of India? e.g. Do we need a Public Sector running industries if they cannot make profits? e.g. What do you suggest to weed out corrupt officials? e.g. Do we need 36 MLAs in a small state like xyz ? For each decision required, the problem statement is web-hosted and available to the select decision makers. Their responses directly influences the outcome and the actions. The IT team at the centre prevents any unwanted manipulations that may be attempted. Effectively, the people in the decision makers list are our 'next-gen' leaders. Not the ones 'operating' the system from the parliament. One more difference is that these people have full-time jobs or businesses to attend to and they are not parasites of the system. Schools and colleges (those not owned by our present day politicians) will offer courses on how to respond to these decision challenges posed.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & DEPLOYMENT PLAN

We could go whole hog if we have the balls for it. Of-course, the pain of change will be there. But not for 60 years. Okay! a more reasonable way to do it to build a transition plan which proposes a parallel nuclear team starting with a couple of portfolios to make the transformation more palatable. Probably our first joint questionnaire floated on the web in this manner could try to identify and rank priority of the top 100 problems facing India today? And also rank the ones to be taken up for action. For Work breakdown structure, milestones schedule, critical activities, resources required, risks and costs involved, venture capitalists please respond. Detailed step-by-step deployment guide will be delivered.

EXECUTIVE ABSTRACT (You could skip this if you've read the whole thing above this, but dont.)

Ring out current structure. Seed a LEAN MANAGEMENT TEAM with a performance driven, routinely refreshed Org chart. Invite the 'new' decision makers. The true people to and serve the nation. If they have bothered to make themselves LITERATE and finacially VIABLE, they are capable of doing the same on a large scale. Others can oogle. Bills, decisions, new ideas to be floated on an IT secured site. Responses analysed and actions taken. Maybe this is not the way some other country does it. But what the heck. India is not just another country. Just visualize the endless possibilities, faster decisions, near-zero corruption, no more LS polls, no MP-trading, lots of vacant bungalows in New Delhi, huge cost savings on 500+ MPs and lakhs of MLAs. FRESH AIR and HOPE for INDIA !

REFERENCES

1. Slumdog Millionaire (study what commoners go through and to learn the KBC answering format) 2. Die Hard 4.0 (to understand how IT adds value to governance)