Travelling in a double decker train is thrilling with a mix of adventure and the people do relish it. Now that there is a proposal to enhance the speed of the double decker train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to 130 km an hour, the question that obviously arises is that of safety. Though railway authorities claim having taken ample measures to ensure safety but that can’t be taken just on its face value for the reason that such measures are not new ones and despite that the accidents in railways have been a routine mishap. A double decker train being too big in height is much more prone to several kinds of mishaps. The bullet train, Prime Minister Modi’s dream project, is likely to run on Indian rail tracks shortly and the question of safety is linked to that also because of the speed factor. Nice that such projects are in the offing from the view point of passengers convenience and developmental activities in the country but the first and foremost necessity is to be doubly sure on safety and security before they are launched in physical terms.
Thursday, 18 September 2014
High speed double decker train–how safe?
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Ever hungry M.Ps. want higher limits for poll expenses:
Call it hunger or lust, the Members of Parliament, at least majority of them if not all, all along have an unquenchable thirst for money in some name or the other as if hyper jump in their salary and allowances last time with basic pay alone fixed at one lakh per month was not enough. They are practically on a loot of public exchequer for their own comforts and luxuries. Now many of them are clamouring for an enhancement in their poll expenses limit. There are many contestants who already spent in their last elections much beyond the limit prescribed by the Election Commission which is an offence but nothing sort of any penalty or punishment happened to them. Their allowances other than salary are innumerable. They are the ones who raise hue and cry every time there are demands raised for improvement in monthly emoluments for the employees of public sector undertakings including banks who toil hard with their sweat and blood in the interest of the people of the country. Employees are forbidden by their service rules to opt for any side job or business as against the M.Ps. who have a multiple tier of businesses to earn a hefty income besides their own salary and allowances. It is a sheer corruption in a way and time has come for the concerned authorities that be in the matter to cry a robust halt to their ill manoeuvred designs to grab public money some way or the other.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Every things boils down to money:
No kind of service or some relaxation is available without paying something extra for it and this has become the routine trend of the financial institutions. Know Your Customer (KYC) is the scheme launched in banking industry exclusively for generating awareness amongst the customers in relation to keeping necessary information on their accounts duly updated and there is actually no reason why there should be any charge for it but now they are levying a charge as a penalty. State Bank of India claiming to be “the banker to every Indian” has levied it at Rs.112/. In a way this is a customer service and this was and should be without any extra charge. This way or that, the motive of the bankers is to earn profit without really being serious about an adequate service to the customers. This is discouraging and warrants to be withdrawn.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Divers–they deserve all praise, and incentives too:
They are the ones who save life of many a people snatching them back from the jaws of death putting their own life to a grave risk. People getting drowned in the Ganga at its Kanpur ghats is a usual scenario particularly in the days of religious festivals. Men, women and children go to the ghats and take a dip in the river seeking salvation. Many an enthusiasts indulge into overdoings and take the venture of going to the deeper side of the river where they are overtaken by the violent currents and it becomes difficult for them to get rid of them. The divers who are on their 24 hours duty voluntarily at their own plunge into the water and are able to rescue many of them, if not all. These divers are paid some thing by way of an ex gratia by the families of those whom they save which is normally a meagre amount, but in some cases it is quite significant a sum. The local government at times grants them some payments but that too is just a small amount. These divers in fact deserve not only all praise for their sacrifices, they deserve some bigger incentives in monetary terms so that they could afford necessary sustentation to themselves and their families.
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Now FIR through facebook!
Police every where is known for their reluctance on registering a FIR (First Information Report) lodged by the complainants. This is also a fact that the aggrieved people are to run from pillar to post to get their FIR registered with the police. The reason?. Reason is very obvious, it is as police doesn’t want to see crime graph growing upward and the easiest possible way is not to register them. There is already a provision that the FIRs can be lodged through email but it hardly works in practice. Now that there are instructions to register the FIRs through facebook. Sounds so well and nice, but the whole thing is whether it will work or meet the same fate like email did. News wise, the step so taken deserves all praise as it may alleviate the hardships of the complainants to the extent that they may not be required to run helter skelter for the purpose but it has yet to be seen whether it is really given a tangible shape in practical terms.
Friday, 5 April 2013
Customer service in banks:
Different banks in the country including State Bank of India have undergone massive changes in their methodology of work to ensure that the valued customers are in no way inconvenienced. Needless to say that to fulfil such a task the workforce in almost all banks has to work much beyond their stipulated working hours arduously and indefatigably. There are still, as an exception of course, when the faults occur on the part of the managers and the junior staff. Some time back a customer, doctor by profession, presented a cheque and it was not honoured with the remark that it was mismatched and the relative signature of the account holder didn’t tally with the one on record. On enquiry it was found that the relative cheque was quite in order. The matter was referred to the Maharashtra State Consumers Disputes Redressal Commission who ordered the respective bank to pay seven lakhs of rupees to the customer for the damages he might have suffered because of the cheque having been wrongfully dishonoured.
Friday, 14 December 2012
Provident Fund on full salary:
A circular has since been issued by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation to the effect that deduction of Provident Fund from the salary of the employees be henceforth be done by computing provident fund on full salary inclusive of all the allowances payable to them as against the current practice of calculating it on the basis of basic pay+dearness allowance only. The decision so taken sounds apparently to be laudable but it may not give the employees any benefit of increase in their actual take home salary, this shall rather be reduced as a result of more amount being deducted as provident fund. Saving wise, it is alright, but any cut made in the salary by terming it as a compulsory saving for the employees may hardly mean any thing in days to come on the face of the fact that value of money is getting deteriorated every day as a matter of inflation, rather hyper inflation, which is so rampant.
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Shower of gifts–What does it indicate?
The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (India) Akhilesh Yadav remains all set all the time to most benevolently announce something or the other every now and then in the interest of the people in the State. His father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, during his regime as Chief Minister of the State for a record tenures of four times was never found to be that generous. The most often repeated excuse by him on that count was paucity of the needed funds. Where from these funds are coming presently is a matter of mystery. The very saying that ‘where there is a will there is a way’ might be applying here, but the question that arises here is as to why this sort of will was missing earlier, and why it has emerged only now. The guess of the common man is that it is definitely for a purpose –the purpose that his father Mulayam Singh Yadav is a potential candidate for Prime Ministership of India, where the major role has to be played by Uttar Pradesh, the State which offers maximum number of Members of Parliament, supposedly a big chunk of strength for the purpose during the elections due in 2014, which may even be held earlier in the event of the current Parliament being dissolved, possibility of which can not be ruled out as per ‘no confidence motion’ being a likelihood in its current session. It’s good that there are several gifts offered by the present government to the people of the State in various forms, but the tragedy is that the politicians are able to find out the necessary avenues for welfare of the public and development only when it benefits them some way or the other. They adjust their ‘will’ to suit their personal interest.
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Why should they be provided special security?
Look at them and you find they are all the time provided a battalion of security force. Security for what? Do they really deserve it or it is just a burden on public exchequer? In most of the cases it is only an unnecessary wastage of public money. Besides ministers an ordinary MLA/MLC or an MP is given security and in several cases even their family members get it. Study shows that not all of them genuinely need it. In many cases they manufacture false stories of danger to their public life to secure a cover. This cover is mostly used by them as status symbol and terrorise their opponents which is totally a personal area and has hardly to do any thing with public interest. Since it suits them all there is never a word of dissent against the arrangement by any political party in the country who otherwise are well known for all the time fighting amongst themselves for some reason or the other or no reason at all. This again is a sort of corruption warranting a peremptory curb in the public interest.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Service to the poor with a missionary zeal
The man behind this missionary project playing most pivotal a role is Sankareswar Dutta, the Managing Trustee of Suvendu Memorial Trust. A retiree from State Bank of India, he is a renowned Trade Union leader and a Social Worker. He started the Trust in the fond memory of his late son Suvendu. To form the initial financial resource for the Trust he had to use the superannuation proceeds he got on his retirement from the Bank. He is a work alcoholic committedly adhering to the task he undertakes. Moreover a father in him is engrossed twenty four hours a day to secure a due monumental significance for his late son by making it possible that the project does flourish to the required heights. Hard work and a strong will is a combination unfailingly capable of eliciting the desired results. Such a combination is sure to further accelerate the service to the people in a bigger measure.
The relative link, as already given in this post for further details, is reproduced :www.suvendumemorialtrust.org
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Is online operation really relevantly instant ?
Online operation is tempting, look as it does instantaneous, and the one operating a computer feels as if the entire world is under his feet. So alluring it is on the surface that persons can't help realizing their dreams coming true. Most often it is found to be a mirage as things are just different in physical terms. There is nothing to blame the very mechanism as the tricks are played by those who know no limit to exploit it. Take banks for instance who get never tired of flashing their ads on different products and service. They say it is now a matter of just few minutes to transfer funds not only from one branch to another in the same bank but from any bank to any bank.The allurement is sans practice and when tried it is found that the task is too cumbersome a job and applying clicks after clicks going from page to page where the customers ultimately land is to personally contact the relative branch/bank and there it comes to days and weeks for their request to materialize or receiving a final 'no'. The anomaly equally holds good in the matters of demat accounts for share trading. A trader comes across some instant opportunity, needs funds for the purpose obviously on an urgent footing and presuming that his funds with the identified bank can forthwith be transferred for the purpose, he/she clicks the fund transfer area on the site only to elicit a prompt message that the request is accepted and that it may materialise within next 2-3 working days by which time the very opportunity is lost.
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Warring factions in SBISA
Internal conflicts, group clashes and a routine bout fighting each other are a normal phenomenon. As we can witness them physically, they need no interpretation or an analysis by experts as it happens in the situations relating to the past. Only today two conflicting groups belonging to SBISA (State Bank of India Staff Association) with their contestants in election due within next few days called on me, both having large number of supporters with them -one quite big and the other one comparatively smaller obviously to enlist my patronage. As is the scenario obtaining in political circles, other local factors are prone to adopting the same style and patter in conducting their affairs like politicians do. One trying to overpower the other. Final ratings in respect of any forum or union lies with the general membership and such a rating presently is quite poor as they do not feel secure in the newly generated tactics on dealigns with the workforce by the management. They strongly feel they are not safe. They watch with interest a chance for VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) which they are eater to avail at the earliest opportunity for the simple reason that sooner they get out of the office they serve the better. Leadership commands hardly any respect. Following wise, the supporters join lobbies based on groups as there is nothing like some
definite ideology or princeples. Fighting for what ? Fighting for whom ? Problem with the electorate is always that usually they are not assertive and all moves stop at group politics leaving the real mission of service far away behind in the background. Like public of the country is unable to apply their right of franchise in a fair manner, so are all other sections in different sectors. If right of franchise is allowed to be applied in its right perspective, the possibility of deserving leaders emerging to surface is very much there. Electing the people who deserve a position is a healthy sign of the very establishment furthering the interest of the people but in the absence of it the position is just otherwise. Why contestants in any election can't take it as a mission on their part to serve the people, think of their interest, restore them the needed security ? If they are able to do so or those who deserve based on their conduct and performance, they are the leaders in honest terms qualifying themselves for a buck up from all sides.