27. Funny State: Bus Ride

It’s not sincerity or honesty that helps run a people friendly nation. It’s not even intelligence or diligence, not even power or influence…. All that’s required is sheer cheekiness in managing the situation

“The price of Gold has doubled in less than five years and people are still buying it… The land value in cities grow even more than that and I don’t see anyone complaining it. But I raise the bus charge by a mere rupee and there is a hullaballoo all over. There are cartoons parodying the transport department in every possible way, strikes, lock-outs & rallies protesting it…” Joshwa, my contemporary chief minister from neighbouring state was complaining.

Good thing that I resisted the pestering by my finance & transport minister on toeing the line of our neighbour states to raise the fare

------o------

“So where do we stand on the proposal for our new Governance centre” I asked our council about my plans for my new office I have envisaged

For all its grandeur, the existing office was just an eye candy and was very inconvenient to work in, the electricity lines, telephone and utility lines… you can modify a century old building to modern facilities only to an extent… especially when you have the penchant for modern amenities like I have. The final straw was drawn when they said they couldn’t install a voice activated shower in my personal room.

“It is not possible introduce new power lines without affecting the aesthetics or safety of the structure” said the Engineer

This is why I was sceptic about appointing this bright looking guy. You can’t get what you want if you are always wise.

“Had I given the contract to some local guy he could have done some ‘jugaad’ and installed the shower in my room” I told Pritam, who’s become my talk-to person for all these stuffs.

“But he may not have cared even if you’re electrocuted while taking shower, which our guy says is pretty much a possibility with the state of our wirings” he reasoned

Am always bad at responding to reasons of smart guys. They always counter reason when am wrong and don’t readily agree like others do. But I need to put up with them, cos the alternate choice of too much flattery makes me uncomfortable

                                                                      ------o------

I was looking from Finance to Public works minister, and no one looked like taking any effort to reply me. “What’s the status of my god-damned new office ?”

“There’s a problem…” Pritam started

“Why is that you always come to me with a problem?” I scowled, though I knew he was one of the few who were willing to approach even when it was not going to score any brownie points for them.

“We don’t have enough money” ignoring my previous ramblings

“What? We’re the government… we don’t have money build a stupid office building?”

“We used to run in negative for a while. The earlier government never planned on returning to power.” Finance opened his mouth the moment he got an opportunity to put the blame on opposition.

“Is there a possibility of improvement in few months?”

“If we raise the taxes on fuel and transport fares…” Transport began

“I just had a talk with Joshwa, he is experiencing hell in his state. I don’t want anyone repeating the same old fare-hike jokes in weeklies” I interrupted him

“So let’s at least drop the new building plan until situation improves” said Pritam

“And when will that be?” I knew there wouldn’t be any answer even before I asked the question

                                                                             ------o------

“I know you are reluctant to join my team. I understand your reservations on joining a politician’s advisory. But I need you, the country needs you” I barged into Praseed’s office that was unresponsive to my mails and calls.

“You really believe what you just said?” he was sarcastic

“Am an opportunist, I have to believe in whatever is my most beneficial stand point”

“That’s the problem, you don’t have any principles” he replied

“Come on, you know you can easily win any argument with me. I can no longer work with people who are too reluctant to speak out facts on reality….” I continued “and I know you can put a lot more of what you have learnt to practical use”

The last words should have clinched the deal. I knew that he’d never be just satisfied with giving scholarly comments about the government’s actions on daily news.

“Now I’ll have to convince Kanmani….”

“Don’t worry… she’ll say ‘yes’. I’ll speak to her” I was not sure why I felt offended by this help by him.

                                                                             ------o------

Candy (aka Kanmani) was the complete opposite of Praseed’s brooding & serious personality, she was cheerful & sociable, and one would always like to agree with whatever she says. Wherein you’d want to counter argue what Praseed says just because of the way he ridicules your level of intelligence in each of his sentences.

And that’s the main reason why I said ‘no’ when Praseed said “We have to raise the bus fares”

 “Then stop the spending” he said    

     

“I did not bring you to the team to say what we already know” he had to be shown who the boss was

“What he says is why we don’t try some indirect ways of generating revenue, ways that might assuage the heat people feel on an outright raise” Candy mollycoddled my idea to him

So after a few days of research Praseed came up with something what he said would be familiar anyone who has attended Economics 101. “Good thing for our politicos that even the most educated lot have gone through no or at the max a little exposure in the subject of economics”

“That should make much more usable knowledge material than knowing what Jawaharlal Nehru was very much fond of children” Kanmani agreed readily. I also did not miss the disapproval of Pritam on her irreverence towards the near godlike national leader

“So what’s the plan?” I cut short the intellectual gabble

So Kanmani explained to us the general premise of the idea. “They call this the price-demand curve. What it basically says is that when the price is more, people buy less, and when price is less people buy more”

“That’s so obvious, what does this has to do with our bus tickets” Pritam asked what I was going through my mind

“The price of bus tickets is similar to any other cost. So the total revenue would be the area P2Q2 for high price option and P1Q1 for low bus tickets” Praseed explained

“So you are telling that whatever I do I’ll get the same amount of money”

“Same amount of revenue, and not net cash flow” Praseed corrected me

“What does that mean?”

“Assuming more or less same cost per passenger kilometres, for the same revenue, our cash flow will be better with high price tickets”

“And I’d face the ire of public in all the media and hartals” I completed his words

“That’s why we have come up with a plan which can satisfy everyone” Kanmani came in. “They call it product differentiation in marketing terms” she continued “Instead of having revenue equal to only one area P1Q1 or P2 Q2, we can have the entire area under the demand curve”

“What should I do now? Raise the price or not?”

“Have buses at different price range so that everyone can choose their preference. So we’ll get maximum revenue and at the same time cater to all sections of people” she concluded

I knew Pritam was sceptical, but continued with the necessary procedures required for the changes.

                                                                             ------o------

 It was about six months since the changes were made in the transportation department. Though revenue had improved, it still did not make the desirable cash flow. And it did not satisfy the general public either, as they found that the more affordable buses were getting less frequent.

Since it was the first half of our term none of our party members, and even most of the opposition members cared little about the plight of a bus traveller. The only person nagging me was Govind, the Transport minister, and that too only because he was overlooked while making the decisions. His rumblings had the potential to turn into dissatisfaction among party members, but I knew development of such a situation would take considerable time and I hoped things would turn up for the better, or something would rise itself to the occasion to assuage Govind

“So why am I still faced with empty coffers?” I asked Pritam

“Think some of the assumptions we made were not accurate” Praseed suggested

“I knew it from the beginning. These theories won’t work in real life.” Pritam looked at me blamingly

“Like I said some assumptions need to be fine-tuned” Praseed repeated

“How could you think that cost of deluxe and regular buses is the same? A regular bus is crowded four times your deluxe, and they are the people we really need to cater to” Pritam continued

“This is exactly the kind of insight we are looking at” Candy tried to pacify the situation by complimenting him, “and I also think we should make the buses more attractive if we need to generate volume in premium ticket fares”

“Instead we can buy more buses so that common man and footboard travelling school children need not suffer. The rich kids will anyway have pick up vehicles” Pritam continued to argue

“The most developed country is the one where even the richest use public transport” Praseed observed

Finding that the argument goes nowhere, I stopped “So what’s the best decision?”

“The best decision is to put forth the alternate views before assembly and get consensus on what has to be done” said Govind who had just now come in. This is the sort of hyperbola that I don’t like in democracy, too slow decision making process. With my style of work handling a person which such ideas would be tricky

“Govind bhai, I give you full freedom in decision making, and I’ll back you on it irrespective of the outcome, leave the consensus making to me” I was sure he was not prepared for this sudden elevation to mantle.

“But CM bhai, I can function only based on our expert opinion.” He looked at Praseed & Candy to help him out

“So why not follow what we do in Metro trains, separate first class coaches and hence separate boarding & waiting locations” Candy came up with a suggestion

“So that they would still live in a cocoon away from the reality of ‘poor’ India?” Pritam was ready to argue anything

“Sadly, what you say is kind of right, but it serves the purpose” she smiled at him pleadingly

“Let’s give it a good name so that people don’t feel discriminated” Govind came up with a good suggestion least expected of him

                                                                             ------o------

‘Fast Lane service’ started without much fare in all the metros. I particularly insisted on making it a low pro affair so that it’s not subjected to stringent scrutiny. Services ran on select main routes which had scope for premium priced tickets. Govind as per the ‘expert’ committee had appointed a professional agency to conduct surveys to predict demand for routes

Things did improve a bit in the coffers. Though there were certain rumblings about ‘Fast lane’ eating up more of government spending, people were content since we took care that the regular services were not affected adversely. People were particularly appreciative about ‘point to point’ services to airports & railway stations matching timings of major flights & trains

Few days past I received a call from the Finance Minister at the centre. Expecting word of appreciation for the work done I greeted him cheerfully.

“Chotu, greetings” he addressed me rather grim “This is going to be rather uncomfortable. The Industrial reports for the year have just come. And the results are rather unwelcome, especially your state has marked slowdown compared to other states, especially in automobile & other sectors” things he said after dimly registered in me

For some unknown reason I remembered Pritam saying cheerfully that day ‘The roads are less crowded, more people have started preferring public transport to private vehicles’

And Govind barged into my room with urgency “The cab drivers union wants to meet you. They feel their business has come down rapidly, especially the airport services are eating into their revenues”

I recollected what the Finance Minister had told a while ago “Chotu, I appreciate all the techie things you’ve done; they are done with noble intentions. But do you think that’s the real problem with loss making public transportation? Haven’t you observed more & more private transports plying through the same routes where we make losses? Why do you think they don’t make losses?”

A leaking cauldron will not hold much. I realised how much more lay ahead of me. In Praseed’s words “Considering what I have observed in this short time, I have realised how much more the academic world has to catch up with real time economic problems”

1. Funny-state: Tiger shark

2. Funny state: Journalist journey