A Warm and Loving KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid)
Ram Krishnaswamy
Ram Krishnaswamy
Many people, for whom the inbox is a constant garden of delight in terms of getting forwards of all kinds of thoughtful mails (also some not so thoughtful mails, I must admit, suggesting ways of self-improvement that focus all too closely on particular bits and pieces of the body), will have seen the one containing some lessons from history in technology design and deployment.
It starts like this:
Case # 1 : When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens would not work at zero gravity (ink will not flow down to the writing surface).
Solution # 1 : To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees Centigrade.
Solution # 2 : And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil.
And continues, with loads of other fascinating examples of what was once called 'inpert' thinking, and is now called 'out-of-the-box' thinking.
And that got me thinking. What was the central message from these stories?
Moral
· Always look for simple solutions.
· Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.
· Always focus on solutions & not on problems
It bothers me, because we now have a very curious approach to solving one of independent India's most thorny problems - chronic poverty, fed by the continuing inability of the State to deliver a square deal for most of our people.
BTW: In the Bollywood movie "3 Idiots", Virus, the ICE director tells his engineering students, that he received his astronauts pen from the previous ICE director for being the top student. After telling his students how many millions were invested into the development of the pen, one student (Rancho) challenges Virus and asks why not just use a pencil and save the millions of dollars? Virus could not come up with an explanation right away, but nearing the end of the movie, Virus explains to Rancho why the astronaut pen is a great invention due to the dangers a broken-off pencil tip can cause in zero gravity, before giving him the pen as a sign of finally acknowledging him to be an extraordinary student.
( Thanks to my Journalist Friend for this input to this article )
Case # 2 : GoI admits that thousands of crores of subsidies, set aside for people who are condemned to live below the poverty line, was getting pilfered. Only about 6% reaches the needy. We want a solution to identify the people who need government support, so that we can assure them access to a decent standard of living.
Solution # 1 :
Someone picked the most visible IT businessman in the country, appointed him unilaterally as the head of a Central Authority with the rank of a Cabinet Minister, created a 'new model' bureaucracy called the UIDAI (Unique Identity Authority of India), and gave him an initial budget of Rs 45,000 crores (US$ 9 Billion), to spend over the next four years in order to solve this problem.
The UIDAI chief decided (on the basis of his own intuition) that money was not reaching the poor because no one knew who the real poor people were.
He promptly decided the best solution (actually, he had already decided, even before accepting the mission) was to register everyone, poor or otherwise, give them a 12 digit identification number he calls Aadhaar, record their name, address, DOB (date of birth) and also digitise their colour photographs, digital finger prints of all ten fingers, and, to make it absolutely fool proof, throw in an iris scan as well.
He proudly raved about the 'fact' that this database would contain information of 1.2 billion Indian people, the biggest database project ever in the world (it turned out that this, also, may not be the case). The magnitude of this project was so great that he appointed Ernst & Young as the consultants, paying millions. He then awarded MindTree, a Global IT solutions company, a multi-crore project involving services across the application life cycle, from designing, developing, testing, maintaining and supporting the Aadhaar application, to the provision of helpdesk services from UIDAI's Bangalore Technology Office. The original vision, of ensuring the software would run on all popular computers systems, that the data would conform to India's vision of complete interoperability into the future, was quietly set aside.
UIDAI organised a test run in the city of Bangalore, where people queued up to have their colour photos taken to be issued a number. The added attraction was free butter milk, for waiting patiently. The benevolent Minister even planned to pay each and every registrant US$2 for the trouble. This was ok, he thought as it would have cost just US$1.2 billion for 600 million registrations, plus the money was being given to the needy, after all. The results, only 52,338 UIDs assigned successfully out of the first 2,66,000 would-be registrants, has been termed a success for the software. Not clear by whom, though, other than this news report (Pilot project yielded few UIDs - Times Of India
20% success is of course better than the 6% success rate of subsidy schemes, it is true. Will Parliament agree, though? Would you?
This is a project in progress, and there is a budget blowout already, even before leaving the starting block. This is a most complex and expensive solution for a pretty simple problem.
Solution # 2 :
Case # 2 : GoI admits that thousands of crores of subsidies, set aside for people who are condemned to live below the poverty line, was getting pilfered. Only about 6% reaches the needy. We want a solution to identify the people who need government support, so that we can assure them access to a decent standard of living.
Solution # 1 :
Someone picked the most visible IT businessman in the country, appointed him unilaterally as the head of a Central Authority with the rank of a Cabinet Minister, created a 'new model' bureaucracy called the UIDAI (Unique Identity Authority of India), and gave him an initial budget of Rs 45,000 crores (US$ 9 Billion), to spend over the next four years in order to solve this problem.
The UIDAI chief decided (on the basis of his own intuition) that money was not reaching the poor because no one knew who the real poor people were.
He promptly decided the best solution (actually, he had already decided, even before accepting the mission) was to register everyone, poor or otherwise, give them a 12 digit identification number he calls Aadhaar, record their name, address, DOB (date of birth) and also digitise their colour photographs, digital finger prints of all ten fingers, and, to make it absolutely fool proof, throw in an iris scan as well.
He proudly raved about the 'fact' that this database would contain information of 1.2 billion Indian people, the biggest database project ever in the world (it turned out that this, also, may not be the case). The magnitude of this project was so great that he appointed Ernst & Young as the consultants, paying millions. He then awarded MindTree, a Global IT solutions company, a multi-crore project involving services across the application life cycle, from designing, developing, testing, maintaining and supporting the Aadhaar application, to the provision of helpdesk services from UIDAI's Bangalore Technology Office. The original vision, of ensuring the software would run on all popular computers systems, that the data would conform to India's vision of complete interoperability into the future, was quietly set aside.
UIDAI organised a test run in the city of Bangalore, where people queued up to have their colour photos taken to be issued a number. The added attraction was free butter milk, for waiting patiently. The benevolent Minister even planned to pay each and every registrant US$2 for the trouble. This was ok, he thought as it would have cost just US$1.2 billion for 600 million registrations, plus the money was being given to the needy, after all. The results, only 52,338 UIDs assigned successfully out of the first 2,66,000 would-be registrants, has been termed a success for the software. Not clear by whom, though, other than this news report (Pilot project yielded few UIDs - Times Of India
20% success is of course better than the 6% success rate of subsidy schemes, it is true. Will Parliament agree, though? Would you?
This is a project in progress, and there is a budget blowout already, even before leaving the starting block. This is a most complex and expensive solution for a pretty simple problem.
Solution # 2 :
Step 1: Study the problem. Poor people do not get their rightful subsidies, not because they cannot be identified, but because of badly managed supply chain logistics in PDS, NREGS and similar targeted subsidy schemes. The poor have no role to play in either the design or the execution of such schemes. They do not even get to declare their wants or needs.
Step 2: Arrest a few corrupt bureaucrats handling the distribution chain who have milked the schemes (many have been identified already, but an ancient Rule of Service, dating back to the Raj, impedes their prosecution), put them behind bars, and confiscate their assets.
Step 3 : Issue an amnesty call, with a deadline, for other stakeholders in the corrupt handling of PDS and NREGS, to surrender their ill-gotten wealth. Declare incentives for whistleblowers who accurately identify weaknesses in the logistics process.
Step 4: Empower the CVC (Central Vigilance Commissioner) to issue arrest warrants after the amnesty expires. This can be a limited period action, so that the functioning of Government is not permanently crippled, and to prevent 'function creep' of the CVC (function creep is the gradual addition of capabilities not envisaged in the original design, and for which the design may actually be incompetent).
Step 5: Meanwhile, create a parallel scheme for the disadvantaged poor whose entitlements are denied, to officially, easily and swiftly register their grievances. This will assist the CVC (Central Vigilance Commissioner) to investigate and arrest corrupt individuals, stemming their illegal and nation-destroying activities, on an ongoing basis.
Result: Within a year 60% of GoI subsidies like PDS & NREGS will reach the deserving poor as opposed to less than 6% today. Besides, we all benefit from an even-handed enforcement of law and order
Step 2: Arrest a few corrupt bureaucrats handling the distribution chain who have milked the schemes (many have been identified already, but an ancient Rule of Service, dating back to the Raj, impedes their prosecution), put them behind bars, and confiscate their assets.
Step 3 : Issue an amnesty call, with a deadline, for other stakeholders in the corrupt handling of PDS and NREGS, to surrender their ill-gotten wealth. Declare incentives for whistleblowers who accurately identify weaknesses in the logistics process.
Step 4: Empower the CVC (Central Vigilance Commissioner) to issue arrest warrants after the amnesty expires. This can be a limited period action, so that the functioning of Government is not permanently crippled, and to prevent 'function creep' of the CVC (function creep is the gradual addition of capabilities not envisaged in the original design, and for which the design may actually be incompetent).
Step 5: Meanwhile, create a parallel scheme for the disadvantaged poor whose entitlements are denied, to officially, easily and swiftly register their grievances. This will assist the CVC (Central Vigilance Commissioner) to investigate and arrest corrupt individuals, stemming their illegal and nation-destroying activities, on an ongoing basis.
Result: Within a year 60% of GoI subsidies like PDS & NREGS will reach the deserving poor as opposed to less than 6% today. Besides, we all benefit from an even-handed enforcement of law and order
Cost : Virtually nothing
Comment: This solution may not be perfect or complete in any way but promises a lot more than the White Elephant Aadhaar draining billions of Dollars of Tax Payers Money.
The author Ram Krishnaswamy is an Industrial Noise Control Engineer and an alumnus of IIT Madras living in Sydney.
