Barun Roy: Is Japan obsessed with punctuality?

ASIA FILE

If you board a train in Japan, you know you will arrive on time, always, almost to the second. In the whole of last year, the much-travelled bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka ran up an average delay of just six seconds.

Only in Japan is it possible to cut time so fine that you can make the connection even with only a couple of minutes to spare between trains.

If you board a train in India? With luck you may arrive on time, but you don't expect to. Delays are the norm and a tradition. A recent check on the Indian Railways' Train Running Information site on the Internet showed only a couple of Howrah-bound trains running on time as of that particular hour.

A dozen others "" among them were several express trains "" were all running late and the delays ranged from 15 minutes to eight hours and 20 minutes.

Seen in the light of last April's tragic railway accident in Japan, the two situations reveal an interesting cultural contrast. Most commentators have looked at the accident as the result of Japan's almost paranoid obsession with punctuality.

The ill-fated train, at the time it jumped the rails and rammed into an apartment building, killing 104 people, was running only 90 seconds late and the driver was speeding to make up.

But it wasn't simply an obsession with being on time. Reflected in the driver's urgency was also a deep sense of respect for other people's time and a concern that it shouldn't be wasted. In a society raised on such values, any delay is a crime.

It's precisely this respect for other people's time that the Indian society so conspicuously lacks. The railway authorities here never say sorry for late arrivals of trains. Street agitators would blithely hold up trains or block off roads for any cause they think worthy, and the longer the disruption the greater they consider their success.

Appointments don't mean a thing in a government office. Maintaining the honour of office demands that you must be made to wait. If you are chasing a file, you're invariably told to come back tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Political leaders are perhaps the most shameless wasters of other people's time. I know of one West Bengal minister who once came to a meeting more than an hour late. When he found that the organisers had already begun the proceedings since it was getting late, he threw a tantrum, shouted at them, hurled away the bouquet of flowers he had received as he entered, and walked out. There were several important guests on the podium but the minister had no word of apology for them.

It's the respect for other people's time that sets apart a progressive society from a laggard and breeds the discipline in public life without which a nation cannot prosper. It's this that inspires government employees to go to office on time, politicians and bureaucrats to keep their appointments, clerks to keep files moving, and babus at the front desk not to make you wait as they finish drinking their leisurely tea or exchanging gossip with colleagues.

In Hong Kong, if you want an electrician to come by at two, he will come by at two. The ferry remains an old faithful you could set your watch by. It never took me more than 15 minutes at the counter to get my work permit renewed or pay my tax.

In Singapore, the metro runs with Japanese precision and an efficient system of e-governance allows you to get a wide range of things done without having to make trips to and queue up at government offices. Malaysia has introduced a system that checks how fast a customer is served at government offices and the number of services provided within a particular length of time.

South Korea's high-speed train between Seoul and Busan maintains a 98 to 99 per cent punctuality rate. Applications for welfare services are dealt with within three working days, and an electronic Open Procedure Service maintained by the Seoul municipal government virtually eliminates the need to see an officer to know an application's fate.

It's the same concern for the value of people's time that's behind China's frenetic effort to rebuild its transport infrastructure "" roads, railways and bridges. One may call it also an obsession, but the argument driving this effort is unassailable: the lesser the waste of time in moving people and goods, the smoother the economy runs and the greater its growth.

Expanding the railway network, speeding up trains, and ensuring punctuality are therefore a major Chinese development objective, as are highways and expressways "" not just roads "" to link every city in the country. The motive is clear and compelling: to make time more productive for the economy and less wasteful for the people.