System failure

Published On: September 17, 2016 12:15 AM NPT By: Hitesh Karki


We built a system to get away from paperwork but it created dependency of another kind
I am not a regular user of public transport. But I feel good when a big green Sajha bus passes by. The idea of public transport which has been limited to taking people from point A to B, without any concern for their comfort or convenience, is probably why many of us stay away from the system. With the advent of newer bus services, we expect better things. The red buses of Mahanagar Yatayat, I am told, have also come as a welcome relief.

Mahanagar has started to provide value added service to its passengers. Now anyone on board one of these buses can borrow a novel from its mobile library at the front by asking the conductor, read it and return it before leaving. What caught my attention was not this idea per se but that they had big, thick books to offer. They were smart. A scan through a newspaper would finish in minutes whereas with our jams you would probably have hours to kill in the bus. So our innovation is geared towards living with ‘jams’. One way of tackling the problem is to ensure that we have a better public transport system; not merely add a few buses here and there. 

The story is not even about the jams though. It’s more about how we design our systems. 

In his very first interview after becoming Health Minister, Gagan Thapa mentioned that he is working on a ‘system’ in the ministry, whereby he would know, almost in real time, the amount of medicines in stock in health posts all across the country. The moment the stock depletes, an alarm goes off! It’s a great initiative. Good luck with that.  

Then there was the news that Kathmandu Metropolitan City had gone online. Most things for which you needed all kinds of paperwork have now gone online. Encouraged, I went to a ward office once to find more about the system. I was first made to stand on a queue even to enquire about online submission. The next piece of advice was baffling too. I was asked to visit a “cyber” downstairs to fill up the form for me. 

I scanned through the online form. I was not confident that I could do it easily. At the same time I was warned by ward officials that I might goof up. I have fairly good reading and writing skills, working ‘online’ comes naturally to me, and yet I could not garner enough courage to fill the form. I paid Rs 200 to get it filled. I am not sure how many of us have attempted to fill similar online forms while applying for passports.

We have built a system as we want to discourage paperwork and manual intervention. But we have created a dependency of another kind.

Back to the new initiative of the Health Minister. It’s a no-brainer that the software will help solve issues quickly. But the system in itself may not do much. It expedites an existing process but seldom creates a process of its own. This is where I am skeptical.
So who is to blame?

Definitely the one who provides the system. Think of a system that would automatically, or at least in real time, send alerts to the health minister as soon as stocks run out. But I have read about hundreds of such systems that fail simply because of their bad designs. It makes you question whether it was simply lack of ‘software system’ causing the problem. We know we have built and installed numerous systems but seldom have we evaluated them.

To begin with, if a health post never had any medicine and people have ceased to expect any service, no software will help. Next, dispatching a brand new machine does not suffice. The user may not know how to use it. As a result, the system creates a bottleneck. There are many studies in India where systems have ended up becoming a hindrance. The village head, health in-charge, is sitting outside in the sun. He wards off everyone who needs his service saying “the system is down, there is nothing I can do.”
Electronic bidding of tenders makes the process fair. Anyone can bid. However, if the rumors are to be believed, this has led to what experts say ‘creation of new power centers’. In this case, it’s the computer operator who knows who has made a bid and the bidding amount. Even his bosses have no clue.

Systems and software systems in particular have often been considered a solution to all kinds of ills. While private organizations, to a large extent, seem to be making full use of such systems, the public sector seems to be a laggard. 

So we end up calling ‘Hello Sarkar” complaining about some non-functional system. But that is assuming that Hello Sarkar itself is functional. 

hiteshkarki@gmail.com
 


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