All companies have a “way” of doing things. There is the GE way, the Toyota way, the Disney way, the Nordstrom way, and so many others. Back home, we have the Satyam way and the MaytasWay, a copy of which I am holding in my hand. The key word in this 100-page book is “North Star” which was the only reference for Vasco Da Gama during his voyage to India.
MaytasWay is all about defining a super goal — referred to as North Star — and constantly reviewing all business activities to ensure that they lead the company or group one closer to the goal (read north star). So the north star of the Maytas’ companies — Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties — was “to be among the three most admired infrastructure and property development companies in India by March 2010.” It was a well-defined goal which articulated where they want to be with reference to where they are, and with reference to competition, and most importantly, by what time, though the Satyam scam has completely rocked their boat.
Does India as a country have a clearly defined north star? Unfortunately, we do not. There is no clear goal against which we can test each of our policy actions. We of course have the oft-quoted talisman from Gandhiji which asks us to “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him (her),” but it is obviously not a serious tool in decision-making either in government or without — or we would not have 28 per cent of our population below the poverty line.
There should be an overarching goal which the billion-plus population of this country can relate to. There are some mini-north stars that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated in his Independence Day speech last year. He referred to them as the seven sutras or priorities — agriculture, water, education, healthcare, employment, urban renewal and infrastructure. They hardly touch a chord or come across as inspiring for a nation which has a significant young population.
Rewind to a decade ago. You had Prime Minister Vajpayee, fresh from a victory in Kargil, setting the tone for the next decade on August 15, 1999. “Let us together resolve to make this decade the decade of development. To realise this goal, we have decided to double India’s per capita income in the next ten years,” he said from the Red Fort and then went on to talk about the importance of reforms to achieve this target. Today, after a decade has passed, India is a trillion dollar economy, which is more than double of what it was a decade ago.
We are now standing at the cusp of the next decade. As we get ready to celebrate the next Independence Day, we should have a clear-cut north star, which stands clearly taller than all the mini-north stars that are floating around, like power for all by 2009, health for all by some undefined date, education for all and so on.
That overarching goal could be ensuring basic minimum daily food for all, and let’s put a date to that — say, by August 2010. We could have an “each one feed one” campaign or put into action community kitchens that the ruling party manifesto had talked about a few months ago. The Prime Minister has said over the weekend that no citizen would go hungry, but that was more in the context of drought, rather than as a national goal of prime importance.
Perhaps giving work is a superior way of ensuring food on the table. That is what is being attempted through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, but it comes with caveats. Why should it be limited to 100 days’ work? There should be no shortage of unskilled work in a developing country like India which is so starved of basic infrastructure, so there should ideally be no caveats.
Given the “leakages” that all such programmes entail, making India corruption-free by 2010 — through exemplary punishment — could be a national north star, which would make every other programme from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to the Indira Awaas Yojana more effective. I would like to see an India where no one goes to sleep hungry, everyone can find some work and where there is no corruption — and these should not be goals for 2020!
