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To the Editor

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Public service
Ali individuals and groups apply maintenance techniques in private or public life. There is no escape from this chore during one's lifetime, whether employed or not (personal items such as the bath, cleaning and washing are part of maintenance). It is independent of economic status, geographical location, literacy level, age of the person, condition of health, or mood of the moment. Maintenance is an integrated part of public service.
The various types of systems losses in the public services we read about in the local press is a sign of the malaise in the society (governance-good, or mediocre). One cynic was very cryptic in his approach: poor political maintenance!
"Preventive Maintenance" is a formal and specialized area of training and practice, applicable in any application, but it is enforced for maintaining the essential services, to minimize the
period of breakdowns or interruptions (public utilities, medical, military, emergency situations, and many other areas). Without training and practice, its efficacy is low. Cannot depend on common sense-there are many gaps, in approach, and technical standard practices. More specialized is high-tech maintenance schedules in critical applications. This is an additional burden in the third world, as there is never time to catch up, as technologies advance faster and faster.
For example, in the broadcasting service (now include the digital and computer applications and the satellite services), the average life of critical components is kept handy for reference by the maintenance technical staff, so that a component nearing its average life is replaced in time, before failure, to reduce on-air interruptions (in sharp contrast to replace on failure') . An owner of a car has to maintain it properly, as his life (and others'). It
depends on driving the vehicle (imagine a brake failure, a tire burst, or snapping of a (steering) tie-rod. Many homes have emergency lighting arrangement for short periods. The layman's query is: why our public maintenance services are so poor, and getting poorer?
In an underdeveloped country, maintenance of imported systems and equipment could be a big headache, due to several logistic factors, such as shortage of foreign exchange and maintenance budget, bureaucratic hassles and long paper-work (chain of command), and the time taken for importing spares (in an industrialised country, the local spare is available with just a telephone call). Also, training lags behind technology, as newer equipment is marketed all the time. After some time, old equipment have to be discarded, as spares are difficult to procure, (importing used cars is the previous stage). Notice how many old
equipment and systems are still running in our public utility services. Several types of budgets come into the picture: capital, operational, maintenance, and training. Remember our per capita operational, maintenance and training. Remember our per capita income is slightly above USD 400.
Watching the local scene, it is apparent that, not to speak of preventive maintenance, even the scheduled basic maintenance is not performed efficiently, due to various factors, which are known to the operators and the controlling authorities. Here one silent background factor creeps in: the quality of the human resources (technical staff or team) manning a service (viz. the clients may suffer due to dishonest practices).
In field operations (at the site of a public project) there may be many gaps, as the finished job may not tally with the specs noted in the document. Even an honest job may differ in main-
taining the tolerance factor, (a road or embankment, new or under rep air).
Inspection is part of any system. Poor inspection is costly, in the long run; as is poor maintenance (a stitch in time saves nine). If the inspectors do not inspect properly, the nation has to pay for it through the nose. The regulations may be there in the books, but its implementation depends on social norms, followed or disregarded.
Here, the quality of internal leadership comes in, whether it is at the general or technical level. The importance of proper Monitoring is a part of the technical game. Operation, maintenance, inspection, monitoring and regulatory roles are all integrated in public service.
We employ all the tricks of the trade, but still they are not good enough.
Why? Let's blame others!
AM M Abad
Dhaka
English medium
schools
Suddenly, this issue of excessive fees of the English medium schools has taken the centre stage of debate. Some even suggested that the government should interfere in this matter. I would like to say that in this case the fault is neither of the government nor of the schools. The fault is of our democratic system. By "Freedom of ownership" in this system one can own anything he likes if he has the money . Even if the thing is a public utility service or a basic necessity on which life of general people is dependent.
Also in this democratic system the government is not liable to fulfil the basic needs of the general people. Then it encourages privatisation. Finally, when the private companies start to exploit the people, after a While, the need for government interference arises. So why didn't the government take corrective steps in the first place? The whole cycle is just a
process of oppression by the government and some capitalists.
Faizur
Mir pur Dhaka
Sixth National Pay Commission: some suggestions
As the 6th NPC has been formed, we expect that some of the prevailing anomalies in the pay scales will be rectified in its report. Like defence forces, I guess, the judiciary and the teaching (particularly university level) should have a separate pay scale, structures and benefit packages. Duration of schooling of the entry qualifications for various posts should be taken into consideration while fixing the salary with certain numbers of increments, that is, if the entry qualification for a post is 3 years honours, or MA or MBBS than an MA or MBBS should get one or two extra
increments as the case may be over an honours degree holder's starting pay. Where higher qualification is helpful, qualification pay may be introduced for each additional relevant qualification as incentive.
Promotions should be based on rigorous screening on the basis of merit and performance. But at the same time people should not suffer financially and should be given at least two subsequent scales while serving in the same post for a certain period as time scale. Selection grades within a post should be abolished and converted to time scale / sliding scale independent of any evaluation to save the people from unnecessary harassment.
I guess measures like these will invigorate the public sector services.
Towheed Rizwi
Mohammedpur, Dhaka