A K Bhattacharya: Queues as an index of reforms

NEW DELHI DIARY

When was the last time you stood in a queue? Well, let this question be rephrased. When was the last time you asked your driver or the office peon to pay your bills because you did not want to waste your precious time standing in a queue? It is very likely that in the last couple of years at least, you may not have had the need to stand in a queue to pay your bills. Nor would you have felt the necessity to send the driver or the peon on such assignments.

The reason is simple: For almost any service these days, it is no longer necessary to make payments by cash or cheque only, at specified counters at that, set up by the service providers. There are now facilities that allow you to drop payment cheques at boxes placed at convenient stores, petrol pumps and shopping complexes. If you are Internet savvy, you can also make your payments online, using either your credit card or your bank's ATM card.

This is not to argue that queues have completely disappeared. What has indeed happened is that a large number of urban middle-class Indians have now been spared the pain of standing in queues to make payments for services they have used. It's true that standing in the queues can be immensely rewarding if one cares to overhear how fellow consumers in the queue assess the state of domestic politics, declining standards of governance and rising corruption in all walks of life. But that loss is more than compensated by the time and energy saved when one pays the bills online or through the drop-boxes.

This change has been gradual. So gradual, that it has proved to be almost imperceptible to most people. It might, therefore, be useful to recall what an ordinary middle-class urban Indian had to go through till a few years ago. We are not even talking about 1990, when owners of cars and two-wheelers had to stand in a queue to get a specified amount of petrol for their vehicles for the day. It sounds bizarre today. But that was just 17 years ago.

Till even a couple of years ago, paying telephone bills sent by the state-controlled Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) used to be an ordeal, requiring one to stand in a queue for anything between half an hour and an hour. The queues for paying electricity bills at Delhi Vidyut Board's offices were longer. Not surprisingly, consumers often used agencies or resident welfare associations of housing complexes to get their bills paid, at a price of course.

Today, you don't need to stand in a queue or hire an agent to pay the MTNL bills. You don't even need to wait for the telephone bill to be delivered at your residence. Register yourself at the MTNL website and you can see your latest bills and, if you wish, pay by using your credit card or your bank ATM card. Similarly, electricity bills can now be paid online with relative ease, largely because the privatised power distribution companies have used the latest technology and introduced better procedures to simplify the payment system.

Till the early 1990s, purchasing railway tickets for long-distance travel used to be a nightmarish experience: Long queues, poorly ventilated ticket-booking halls and unfriendly ticket-counter officials, who appeared always eager to create complications in your travel plan. The changes in the Indian Railways' ticket-selling system over the years have been phenomenal, though they have been gradual.

Today, you actually don't need to visit a railway-booking hall to buy your ticket. Nor do you need to pay some agents extra money to buy tickets for you. You can simply log onto the Indian Railways website, register yourself and buy your ticket that will be delivered to you in a day or two on payment of a nominal fee. You could also buy an electronic ticket online. In short, buying a railway ticket is no longer a headache.

All this has meant shorter queues at the bill payment counters of MTNL and the private power distribution companies. The Indian Railways' ticket booking halls also do not look very crowded these days. Note that the companies that have taken such consumer-friendly steps belong to both the public sector and the private sector. Economic reforms ushered in competition, which gave consumers the choice. At the same time, they put pressure on producers of goods and providers of services to offer a better deal to consumers.

In many ways, therefore, queues in our country have become a broad indicator of whether a certain sector needs further reforms. There is a queue when you want to apply for a passport. There is a queue when you want to pay your water bills. There is a queue when you want to get your child admitted to a school. There is a long queue when you want to get your complaint heard in a court of law. Needless to point out that all these sectors are in dire need of reform.

The point is that queues were essentially devised to manage a situation of scarcity. But it is foolish to persist with them and not obviate their need with the help of reforms and technology. Telecom companies, power utilities and the Indian Railways have shown the way. It is time other service providing agencies got this message.