An Indecisive Indian

So, where had we reached as we crossed early days to mid 2017? Our Design, Procurement (called stores on IR) and Finance teams had started working with greater camaraderie and cooperation and this had shown results. The consultancy contracts were in place and the crucial procurement contracts were in various stages of completion. ICF officers at this stage were overloaded with regular, incremental and project works. Most of the ace officers were overworked but then I also saw them doing their jobs with a smile. Why were they overloaded? Let me attest for you the basket of tasks at hand at ICF; while Train 18 project was definitely the bellwether, we had some very significant works in hand, e.g., stopping production of ICF design coaches and switch over completely to LHB design even as the overall production was to be increased from 2277 to 2500 coaches, design and manufacture of world class DEMUs for Sri Lanka,   design and manufacture of MEMUs, both with on-board and under-slun...

At the end of the day, our Train 18 strategies were working fine and even getting spun off to all other areas. The consultancy and procurement contracts were getting finalized speedily. I leave the details for the next post. In today’s diversion, let me dilate upon the oft-repeated cliché in govt. organizations, more as a lip service pretension, and not as a governing mantra, “ treat your vendors as partners ”. Let me go back some twenty five years when I was working as a Joint Director in Research, designs and Standards Organization (RDSO), Lucknow, the premier R&D wing of IR. Every day, a large number of industry executives would visit our directorate and one would see them standing in the corridors, waiting for audience with some officer or the other. Some would be seen sitting on the attendants’ stools.   I always found it rather embarrassing. One of the toilet doors in the common wash area was broken for years and I once saw a foreigner inside with his head hidden in hi...

I have mentioned that the sanction of the project was formally received in April 2017. But how? We had done our bit to present our case to the Board, from minions to the top, and it appeared a done deal. Merely two days before the presentation of the budget, however, I learnt that the project had been turned down, and ironically, primarily because it did not find support of the department which was to be the owner of the train. I was given this news when I was abroad. I was bewildered and clueless for some time; it was fruitless to convince people who did not rise above their petty jealousies and biases. There was only one way forward, go to Sri A.K.Mital, the Chairman, with folded hands. As soon as I landed in Delhi, I met the Chairman; I had met him many times earlier and he was generally in agreement. I pleaded that he must give ICF this chance and that we were going to make sure that he would not be disappointed. He agreed and overruled everyone to grant us the sanction within days...

I had mentioned earlier that we made a matrix circa Jan/Feb 2017 We made a matrix of main features of all train sets and broke it down in three categories: 1) where we were almost there 2) where we could be there with some handholding by superior intelligence (consultancy) and 3) where we could be there with judicious selection of vendors, including import, but strictly as per our specs and drawings. Item Where were we? (reproduced from original) Car body shell design and manufacture including painting Pro: We do it all the time. Con: But not to the quality and accuracy we must have if we have the pretensions to match international std. We need a consultant to hold our hands as we design the carbody, its fixtures and tooling and processes so the same are amenable to more accuracy and better quality and supervise our team during manufacture. Fully suspended traction motor bogie fit for 180 km/h Neither do we have a coach bogie ...

My books related with railways and art  (A skein of trains made but waiting to get unchained) If you can call someone who has written only coffee table books with contracted graphics based on pictures of all kinds from within the railway purlieus, art works and events, I am one. My fifth book shall be launched soon, hopefully. But before that, a look at my last book on art and railways.                                   Available from Secretary/ICF on secygmicf@gmail.com                                   disclaimer: I have no royalty of financial interest in sale Let me, however, present a brief outline of my work in bringing visual art to the drab industrial premises of Integral Coach Factory. This was an experimentation somewhat in the fashion of similar ventures carried out in Bangalore earlier; first...

GMs of Indian Railways have been empowered like no other business head in India. I mean it. I have interacted with innumerable MDs and CEOs and I find that a GM of Indian railways is more than a CEO. IR GMs, therefore, have No excuses, for sub-optimal performance. If they do find an excuse, it should remind you of Pembroke in Shakespeare's King John, " Oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse ". Well, in ICF, we exploited it to the hilt and broke many new grounds, riding on this empowerment and our willingness to employ it without fear or favour. Since this is a series, I will make a digression today to put in perspective the achievements of ICF before going into specifics of Train 18 projects. The message is simple: if there is a will, there is a way. I seek the readers’ indulgence to first review what we call ICF 12, i.e., the main achievements of team ICF in last 30 months or so: 1)  ICF became the biggest coach factory in...