Relaxation getting costlier

Recently I came across of news of people getting fined for smoking cigarettes, spitting and loitering in public places, Fine collected for those offences (I believe they are not) contributing to 75000 INR within 10 days of the drive. With an average penalty of 100 rupees implies that 7500 odd people had been slapped with the fine so far.

The question arises that had there been enough smoking zone, dustbins and public utilities in place would this situation raised. The biggest problem with the decision makers is that they never try to do a root cause analysis they work in digital format (my convention) i.e. “0” and “1”. The policy maker will either allow certain things to happen (i.e. “1”) or they will completely ban it (i.e. “0”). They don’t try to work for eradicating the root cause and patiently work towards changing the mindset of people gradually and softly.

Smoking cigarette and chewing gutka, it has been declared as offence in public places. Now the question is all the places are public places (except one’s home) so what the person who is having habits to smoke or chew should do. The immediate argument is the people should leave tobacco. The counter argument for that will be imagine a case when you don’t find any urinals in public places like cinema’s, malls , hotels etc and Loitering in public places is crime then what you will do will you come back home to make yourself relax.

There are n number of reasons of people smoking cigarettes
Some people feel relax after smoking, some people enjoy it, some do it for style, some do it for weight loss and so on so forth.

If smoking is banned everywhere then people will consume less this is understood but have someone ever though of the families getting affected for whom tobacco industry is the life line, have someone though of profit margin of the tobacco companies and there employees who are source of revenue to the system.

Come financial budget and duties and taxes on tobacco products will see a surge. My suggestion would be that instead of doing moral policing and pressurizing people to quit tobacco there are many major issues that should be addressed immediately.

Rising crime graph, unemployment, infrastructure, safe drinking water, basis amenities should be addressed first

Image source:http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/18/stories/2005121801650200.htm

Air India SAGA

Government has obligation to provide Public services no matter they are profiting making or not, State roadways, railways and healthcare are some of the entities which government has to run whether the route service they are operating is profitable or not. Till past some most of the government enterprises use to have huge deficit because of the performance inefficiency and performance ineffectiveness

There are inefficiencies in terms of resource utilization (underutilization) and they are ineffective in terms of achieving organization goals. They never had a strategy of optimum utilization of resources, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness and generate profit from there operations. Any Organization has to run for profit but running business only for profit tends to be corrosive so Profit with values would be the right approach

Current development of AIR India seems to justifying the above written though.

If we probe the history of Air India It was on this day On 15 October 1932, J. R. D. Tata, the father of Civil Aviation in India and founder of Air India, took off from Drigh Road Airport, Karachi, in a tiny, light single-engine de Havilland Puss Moth on his flight to Mumbai via Ahmadabad. Today Air India is the 16th largest airline in Asia, serving 28 destinations worldwide, and, with its affiliated carriers, serves over 100 cities. In 1946, Tata Airlines became Air India and in 1953, the company was nationalized by the Government of India.

Well the point to ponder is 56 years of operation and still 16th largest airline in Asia, and only 100 cities. And the worst to happen the defamation that the organization it is facing a bad weather, looking for bailout, deferred salary for the staff, salary cut etc. etc.

The reasons for the downfall of Air India can be as

1) Air India recruitment process and performance appraisal system can be at fault Good companies distinguish themselves by their quality people. The success of any organization comes through its people.Any HR expert will tell you that an organization needs to recruit good people who have the characteristics (talents) to win the market place.

2) Employees can be incompetent and may not have any sense of belonging. Air India might have not thought of ‘cost leadership’ because of its employees’ low productivity and ‘poor’ cost awareness. It employs 600 persons for running and maintaining one air craft whereas Singapore Airlines employs just 27 persons for a similar air craft. Yet Singapore Airlines is rated as No.1 airlines in terms of performance.

3) Ineffective Operations Main function of the Operations Management of any organization is to create a competitive edge by 15 – 20 % in terms of costs by operational excellence so that the organization can fight its competition in the market place effectively. This seems to be absent in Air India for the last 4 decades.

4) Lack of disciplinary action No disciplinary action was ever reported against the erring pilots who went on strike every time the Management attempted some disciplinary action as a result, the pilot associations /unions practiced their arm-twisting tactics as often as they could and brought the Management on their knees. Finally the management could never think of any disciplinary action against them at all. Hence accountability for performance was totally lost causing huge losses to the airlines

5) No service orientationLike nationalized banks, customer service is something unknown to Air India employees. Instead, the pilots & air-hostesses were behaving like bosses and the passengers were virtually treated like slaves in the mid-air.

There may be many more reason because of which the bottom line may have got eroded. If the Organization would have been in profit it could have served the people in a better way, still we are way behind the developed countries in terms of air transport. There is little air connectivity within the cities across the country. Air transport is a basis infrastrure if we want the cities to grow and industrialization to happen across the country. The responsibility lies majorly with Air India because the private players would be interested to operate only on profitable routs. Somebody needs to take the responsibility of providing air connectivity in / with all the major cities of India

So I wish Air India should stand up again. Because embarrassing delays and technical faults that have led passengers to turn to private carriers with state-of-the-art planes can be regained by adopting good HR Practices and Operational efficiency.

References
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Govt-to-bail-out-leaner-trimmer-Air-India/articleshow/4698022.cms
http://home.airindia.in/
http://tharakad.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/06/should-the-government-bail-out-air-india.htm
http://travelhouseuk.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/air-india’s-hyderabad-chicago-flight-from-march-29/

How Monsoon can affect my country

Monsoon directly impacts economy because it directly impacts the agriculture (an important segment of the economy) because:

· Agriculture contributes to a one forth of the GDP.
· Agriculture provides raw materials to a fifth of the industry.
· Generate demand for industrial goods.
· Nearly 40 per cent of the manufactured consumer goods are sold in rural areas.
· 60% of the population depends on agriculture for livelihood.

A fall in agricultural production therefore leads to a fall in industrial output. The timely arrival of the monsoon and sufficient rains are thus key for India's economic growth because farmers' success depends heavily on the monsoon rains. Though new growth drivers have emerged in the Indian economy still agriculture is likely to play a very significant role in incremental growth as it did in the past. Indian Economy can absorb the shock of poor rain but it is not immune to. We need to find alternative ways to immunize.

In the time of global meltdown where we are already struggling to increase demand and consumption, and keeping fingers crossed to see a GDP between 7-8% a bad monsoon can drag the figures to 5-6%. Analysts worry that bad monsoon could be even worse for the economy this year.

Some states are already facing a drought like situation, even drinking water is getting supplied only once in ten days. When there is such a scarcity of water there is no question and point discussing water availability for the irrigation purpose and this is a bad news for agriculture and especially to the small farmers.

Some farmers have already tilled their lands and sown their seeds and if rain gets deferred, their seeds will dry up and when the rains do come, the farmer may not be left with any more seeds to cultivate.

Food production will be affected and after three years of good monsoons, a dry spell could spell disaster for a recession-hit Indian economy, with lower food production the prices of agricultural commodities will shoot up.

Indian Two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas and is, directly or indirectly, dependent on the agriculture sector. With failure of crop and lower rainfall more and more rural population will be shifting to urban base and will create a pressure on the overall system.
FMCGs, textile industries, agricultural good industries, industrial goods sell about one-third of their total products in rural areas. A fall in rural income, following a bad monsoon, can substantially change their fate.

According to the Noble report on Indian FMCGs, HUL, 50 per cent of its revenues comes from rural India, while it is 45 per cent for Dabur, 35 per cent for Colgate Palmolive, 30-35 per cent for Godrej Consumer products and 25 per cent for Marico.Falling income from bad crops means that lower demand, lower GDP and a higher draft on available government resources on account of relief measures and in this time of crises government would not be ready for another relief package for the farmers.

A bad monsoon will impact us in many ways and I would like to give a wake up call to save water, plant trees, go echo friendly and reduce carbon emission.

Sources:
http://www.valuenotes.com/
http://ibnlive.in.com/
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/
http://www.financialexpress.com/
http://www.koi-hai.com/gowrimohanakrishnan.html

Promises that I have to keep.

From the very first day when the news of downturn appeared in newspaper and news channel I started to calculate many things. I was busy thought day and night watching many things simultaneously the US Presidential elections, Assembly elections in India and what the market analyst across the globe has to say about the fall.

After certain calculation I derived some conclusion and asked my wife to sit and listen to them. I firstly declared an assumption that I have made while calculation certain things. The assumption was that “Neither me nor my company is going to affect by the downturn”

With this assumption I promised her that I will purchase her all the luxurious that we have though of, a big house, a three boxer car, modular kitchen and lot many things for my kids and mom.

Well the thought process behind those promises was a well planned strategy.

My Dream House: With a global slowdown there will be an oversupply of everything in the Indian market and will push the prices south.
Property market will correct itself enormously because the spark in the market was due to the NRI’s investing dollars into the Indian market. Once they run short of money they will be sell there assts and there will be oversupply of housing in India.

Companies who were involved in big projects will find less buyer and pressure will appear on the prices.

Peoples who have blocked there money in assets anticipating that prices will appreciate will start selling their assets causing a further pressure on prices.

There will be at least some cases of defaults (sub prime crises. Though before the downturn the customers were prime customer but after downturn they became sub-prime and couldn’t pay there emi’s) which will force housing loan entities to increase there margin money and interest rates resulting in less availability of loan. So there will be low demand for housing and will create pressure on price again.

All the above sentiments will hamper the zeal of house buyers and at that particular time I will buy a house.

My Dream car: With Giant Auto makers filing for chapter 11 indicated me that my dream for 3 box car is not far away.


Post chapter 11 people will loose faith and interest in the products of those auto giants resulting a lot of stock lying idle in the backyards forcing them to bring down the prices; here I will enter as a buyer.
Companies will cut down the prices to recover the investment made resulting a pressure on the prices; here I will enter the market as a buyer.

Agencies will offer heavy discounts to clear there idle backyard stock and to reduce their cost of holding, here I will enter the market as a buyer.


The downturn will have a multiplier effect on all the things wherein one thing pulling down the second, the second thing pulling down the third one and so on.

I will have ample opportunities to purchase whatever I thought of.

But sorry to say that I defined and speculated the strategy well but couldn’t execute it out, there are n number of reasons of not putting those strategies in action. But the bottom line is that I have to fulfill my promises