An Indecisive Indian

I have been saying many things about Transfer of Technology (ToT). Lest it be taken as a ball of wax condemnation of the concept, I must put my criticism in the right perspective. I am not asinine enough to condemn ToT as a disabling vehicle; we have indeed learnt a lot through the ToTs we have gone through on IR. My take is simple. In areas where the gap between the requirement and our expertise and capability is large, there is no alternative but to contract an arrangement for acquiring technology; there can be many models but the underlying idea should be meaningful learning not only for doing a proficient job but also for imbibing enough of the design and manufacturing philosophy to equip ourselves for future expansion of the concepts in new designs. On the other hand, in areas where this gap is not so large, we have to challenge ourselves without the need to engage a ToT provider. We have to ask if a ToT is indeed necessary or we can take up the project on our own, knowing that t...

The concept of providing all the equipment, not only for traction and braking but also for air-conditioning, ventilation and lighting, and indeed everything else, below the floor was working out. As Train18 neared completion, we could see that this would revolutionize the way we laid out equipment and sub-assemblies in our rolling stocks. In any case, we were certain that we had hit upon the right concept and that we must transfer it to other rolling stocks as far as possible. Back in early 2017, even as the Train 18 work had picked up speed, both Sri Srinivas, Chief Design Engineer/M and Sri Vavre, the then Chief Design Engineer/E approached me with a grandiose plan to equip all self-propelled trains with Train 18 clones for bogies and propulsion. Although the Train 18 project itself was in infancy, they were already brimming with confidence about the impact it would crate and change the way we designed rolling stock. It was music to my ears as it had been at the back of my mind too...

There is no gainsaying that your most important resource in any organization, irrespective of the level of automation and mechanization, is your human capital. If you are able to deal with this primary resource WITH sensitivity, receptiveness and empathy, you have taken the most important step towards achieving something I keep repeating it because it was the key; I was fortunate that our HR management was headed by a very mild-mannered but assertive officer, the Principal Chief Personnel Officer, Sri Mohan Raja. He was the fulcrum in all our endeavours towards exploiting our human resources to their full potential. He was again going to be the mainstay once again when we decided that the time was ripe for ICF to adopt a universal biometric attendance system in ICF. In this area, and many more, he was going to prove himself to be the magician who helped turn around the HR scenario and the perspective at ICF. Although we did not have any incidence of industrial unrest in ICF th...