2025-02-27
Bureaucrats are some of the most credible gang members as they seldom snitch on their collective wasteful activities. At this point it is a widely accepted notion that even the most fertile kind of land gets turned into most barren and lifeless one the moment it get touched by the bureaucracy. I believe, much has already been written about this peculiar characteristic of the bureaucracy. That's why today I want to write something very specific. Let's break the ice, in the last one year, because of my job I have had the misfortune of attending these government organized 'Vendor meets', 'MSME conclaves' (conclave for small businesses), investment summits' and (insert names for other events organized by the government to increase the collaboration between PSUs and private sector undertakings).
Investment summits and vendor meets are rare occasions when the government and private sector collaborate together to successfully organize an inefficient and wasteful event. If by any chance you have been to any such event, I am very much sure that you would agree with my last statement. Now I must say that the idea behind organizing such events is noble: To get investment for small businesses, improve PSU & vendor relationship by providing a platform to discuss possible issues. Not only that, vendor summits allows small and medium size businesses to present their product/service to officials of PSUs (public sector units). it is a dream opportunity for businesses to become a vendor to PSUs. Overall the idea is to strengthen the private sector with better collaboration with PSUs.
But despite having honest intentions, these summits are plagued with the inherent characteristics of good old bureaucracy. As I said in my first line that bureaucrats never snitch on each other, but since vendor meets are such occasions when both bureaucrats and private individuals are on the same stage, it becomes almost impossible to hide how carelessly tax payers money is spent while organizing such events. And let me just give you some examples to this before I try giving possible solution:
1- Expensive hotels In my experience of asking high ranking bureaucrats about what was taught to them during their training period, usually I get this sort of reply "We were taught about dressing sense, how to eat, different kind of spoons, table etiquette and so on basically they make us gentleman". Organizing any official event in a business like setting will be shame for their king size gentleman lifestyle. Hence, any vendor meet is usually organized in five star hotel where these professionally trained gold diggers can enjoy french bread with ten different spoons while they keep uttering rubbish to each other in their fake British accent while completely forgetting the real reason why the meet was hosted for.
I might have been bit harsh in the last paragraph, but seeing all this happening as a taxpayer is bit tough.
2- Merely a checkbox activity for bureaucrats
Okay see, Let me ask a business representative that with what goal he is attending such an event? "Well I either want investment or want new contact sighed from these government companies as I really want to become one of their vendors".
Now lets ask the same question to the bureaucrat as why did he attend such event? "Every year we have to organize two of such events that's why I am here." that's it. The only reason a govt. official might be attending a vendor meet or investment summit is because he has to. Apart from that there is no goal which he has to achieve by attending such event. If forced he might say that a free exotic lunch and a get together with his colleagues along with a day off work is his prime goal. But yes there are some officials who also have to give speech. The speeches which are, simply put, general off topic - self flattery monologues.
How things can be made better:
I might not be the expert on process improvement, but as a common man with some experience of attending such events in both public and private firms I can see two things which private companies have and government ones lack. These are the changes which can drastically improve the productivity of such government organized events:
1- Setting up of goals
No I am not asking our lord like bureaucrats to set performance goals and work. They are lords they should not work, they are above us taxpayers. But basic goals can be set before the initiation of the vendor meet or investment summit. Maybe the goal can be to improve lets say furniture procurement in a big PSU. The point I am trying to make for setting up this goal is that when this is shared to the vendors during to vendor meet, a productive discussion can be initiated. As vendors from different sectors are already there they can give some recommendations. But no, currently the goals are kept hidden in the muddy self flattery speeches given by the officials.
2- Reducing the number of bureaucrat attendees or making them accountable
It is the peculiarity of government enterprise to send three men for the job of one man. But what I have found is that this proportion goes to wild extent during vendor meets. I will give you one example. There was this vendor meet organized by one the the biggest PSU of my country, 60% of the seats in that 5 star hotel was occupied the bureaucrats. And no one but bureaucrats were allowed to present their ideas in front of the audience. At its peak it was like a meet setup by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, the only thing which was reserved for vendors was the name of the event "Vendor meet". But this was just the start, right before the lunch started the hotel was all of a sudden got invaded by at least a hundred other bureaucrats. And the most ironical thing was that it was the vendors who had to pay INR 3000 per head to attend the meeting. And the government employees following their peculiarity were free loaders. Well, there presence is enough I guess. So much presence that for every one vendor there were at least 10 bureaucrats during lunch time. Who decided to form their own high class groups keeping vendors aside from entering their 'gentleman conversations'.
I think this only happened because the officials who joined have no one to report to after the meet ends. While on the other hand each employee from a vendor company has to make a report, present it to the management, follow up with the opportunities and strive for closure. And what will those outnumbered bureaucrats do after the end of the meet? well they will probably go to their home and sleep on comfortable king size bed and perhaps think about the promotion which they are sure to get after the completion of 5 years as per government policy.
If and only if these officials can be held accountable, and responsibilities can be set to improve the procurement in their respective departments by making the current issues public to the businesses. If this is done the vendor meets and investment summits can serve the real purpose they were built for.
However, I must add that vendors are not dumb, they know how lazy and careless an average bureaucrat is. Vendor uses this loophole to sell overpriced inferior products to PSUs. Which ends up harming the taxpayer's money
As time proceeds and the facade of vendor and investment summits goes away, it is becoming the public knowledge that how inefficiently organized these events are. Recently in Bhopal they organized an global investment summit only to find out that during lunch there all brown global investors started to fight each other for plates. It is time that taxpayers should be banned from such government organized events. It is not in favor of the bureaucracy that tax payers will get to know how inefficient and wasteful bureaucracy is.
The subconscious thinking from the side of bureaucracy that taxpayer's money is an infinite resource with no responsibility on spending is what makes bureaucracy an unaccountable overspending behemoth.
According to BJP, investors signed MoUs worth 30.77 Lakh Crore in the Global Investor Summit in Bhopal this week.
— Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) February 26, 2025
Meanwhile investors: pic.twitter.com/S39DmfNMAb