Is this how the government really works?

On Monday Abhishek and I went along with N and L to meet some government official at the Ministry of IT. I was quite kicked and excited! I had heard multiple (mostly not very positive) anecdotes on how it can be do deal with the government. So here I was all ready to see it in action!

Over the last 8 years or so we had set up a number of our learning centers at 6 locations throughout Delhi. Unfortunately, only 1 exists today. The other 5 had lost their funding and hence were shut down. The one that was still standing was on the verge of being closed because the payment on that was overdue. The 'buyer' was (of course) the government. The Ministry of IT had initiated the meeting because they were considering reviving the 5 learning centers that were shut down. At our end, we had an additional agenda of collecting the late payment that was overdue.

So we drove to the Central Secretariat where the Ministry of IT resides. While Abhishek and N parked the car, L and I went to the reception to get passes made. There were 4 women there, 2 of which had their heads down and were sleeping! After getting the passes we wandered through the building onto the 9th floor to meet the official. The official met us 10 minutes late but he acknowledged that he was late and apologized. I was quite surprised considering that many people never bother apologizing for making others wait. So I instantly liked him.

Anyhow, the official's conversations were mostly with N. The rest of us just took a back seat and observed and chipped in once in a while when necessary. The official was quite bright. He definitely seemed like a guy who cared to make a difference. I was sitting there with a very positive attitude of him and the government in general.

We started talking about our learning centers but soon the conversation wondered off to another project the Ministry of IT was close to implementing. It had to do with setting up 50 computer centers across Delhi. These computer centers would cater to the youth in marginalized communities. The goal was to engage the youth into doing something more productive in order to deter them from entering into a life of crimes. So the computer centers would impart some sort of vocational training. So N and the official dug into this idea deeper. N tells the official that other states, including Rajasthan, have implemented similar ideas but were not successful. The official was a little taken aback by that and asked N to please explain why they were not successful. So N continued to tell his views and what he knew about this.

The whole time in the back of mind I'm thinking, is this government official serious? Did him and his staff seriously plan the launch of 50 centers without any market research? We should not have had to tell them of other states or organizations that have implemented this idea. We should not have had to tell them about the (wrong and naive) assumptions they were making about their idea. We should not have had to tell them them whether this idea has been successfully (or not successfully) implemented anywhere. They should have done thorough research and helped alleviate our concerns that we raised with the idea. How can they put so much money into implementing something they don't even have a business plan for? Forget the money, they don't even know if the program will have the intended impact it was designed to have?

Now we know where a decent amount of our tax rupees goes - in poorly planned but well-intentioned projects.

And oh, about reviving the learning centers and paying our dues - that's something the official said he'd follow up with us in 2-3 days (max).

~ Raina