The Logistics of India's Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) elections

The Logistics of India's Lok Sabha 

(Lower House of Parliament) 

elections

Prof Archie D'Souza

It is election season in India for the next seventy days. The South Asian nation, with the second largest population and largest electorate, is going to hold general elections in April and May, by far, the largest democratic exercise in the world. About 900 million voters — more than the population of all the countries of Europe combined — will cast their votes to elect the 16^th Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's central government. 543 MPs will be elected, across 29 states and 7 union territories, an exercise which will be undertaken in seven phases starting from April 11 to May 19, with counting to begin on May 23. Mind-boggling to organise the logistics considering the fact that there will be almost a million, up over 10% from 2014; 2.33 million ballot units; 1.63 million control units and 1.74 million voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs). For the first time electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be GPS tracked.

The Election Commission (EC) of India will deploy around 11 million polling staff, which includes security forces. To transport personnel and materials over 120 railway trains, 3000 coaches and 200,000 busses and cars will be used plus a large variety of other conveyances including boats, elephants, camels and bullock-carts and of course, planes and helicopters. This is spread across thousands of towns and villages, not easily accessible.

These elections represent, as we've stated, the world's largest democratic exercise. In 2014, the EC deployed 3.7 million polling staff; 5,50,000 security personnel, 56 helicopters and 570 special trains to conduct a five-week-long exercise in which voters trecked to almost a million polling stations. The central government spent INR 3870 crores (USD 580 million) to enable 834 million voters to elect their representatives from 8,251 candidates.

By area India is the world's seventh largest nation and the second most populous. Conducting these elections is both gargantuan and complex. Mainland India stretches from the Himalayan mountains in the North to the Indian Ocean in the South, the Arabian Sea in the west and the North-Eastern Region in the extreme east, all covering an area of over 3.3 million square kilometres. In addition we have the Andaman & Nicobar Islands off the East Coast and Lakshyadeep Islands off the West Coast. 11 million officials at 1.04 million polling stations will be deployed by the EC and over 2 million EVMs will be used. To reach the isolated far-flung hamlets in the snowbound Himalayas, polling staff will need to treck all the way, carrying with them oxygen cylinders, sleeping bags, food and torches besides the EVMs and indelible ink. This happened five years ago as, during the general election, air force helicopters carrying polling officials were unable to land there. Undeterred, a polling team trekked for 45 kilometres through knee-deep snow in the high mountains to reach 35 voters Other unique challenges need to be faced. In Chhattisgarh, to at polling station, a medical team has been deployed to protect personnel and voters from being attacked by a swrm of bees. A polling station has been set up in the Gir lion reserve for a lone voter.

The Election Commission, an independent body headed by a the Chief Election Commissioner, monitors the process and ensures that elections are free and fair. Once the voting is over in a particular phase, the EVMs need to be safely stored, till counting begins. The results will be known within a day after counting starts.

The average number of voters in each constituency is 2.22 million. The largest, in terms of number of voters, is Outer Delhi with over 3.1 million voters and the smallest Lakshadweep with a little over 37,000. Each polling station caters to 1500 voters. Every voter needs to identify themself, and after proving their credentials, has their left forefinger marked with indelible ink, which dries within a minute but remains visible for over a month. This mark prevents multiple voting by an individual voter.

All this isn't easy. But, election officials are preparing themselves for every new challenge. Polling stations have to be so located that no voter would ever need to trek or travel a distance that exceeds 2 kilometres to vote. We have seen the example of the polling station in Gir with just one vote. To ensure that this lone voter can exercise his franchise, the polling station needs to be located deep in the forest. They reach out to every single voter and it entails deploying a full team of officials.

Among the modes of transport are bullock-carts, camels, donkeys and even elephants. This symbolises the essence of India's elections. There are remote areas in India where motorized transport vehicles have still to reach.

The month of Ramazan starts around the fourth of May, this year. There are several other Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and other festivals. All these, plus the summer heat and monsoon rains have to be factored in, when deciding on the dates, not to forget college examination dates. India's elections are indeed, not just the best case-study in logistics, but in event-management as well. Personnel and materials, including meals, refreshments and drinking water, for the election staff and party observers needs to reach every remote polling station.

Once the voting is over, the counting starts. Thanks to EVMs, despite the daunting numbers, the results will be announced within two after counting commences. Despite the numbers involved, electronic voting will enable counting to be concluded in just a day or two.

Scale is indeed an almost insurmountable problem, but it is just one of the many challenges that the EC and security forces face. Insurgency is a major problem in several areas, e.g. Jammu & Kashmir, the North-Eastern states and regions affected by the Maoists. It isn't uncommon for musclemen, representing certain of the parties or individual candidates, try to influence the voters. There hasn't been a single election in India's history where there hasn't been at least one instance of violence.

India's elections are indeed a great lesson for logicians.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/world/asia/india-election-results.html?fbclid=IwAR0EGj-Z1nyU_O694axN3Xx84ycRJ6hvZR2U9MXCQiNKsd2MkSqFGnsmHQI

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/india-elections.html?fbclid=IwAR1SQyytw_1EcFkREaZudWbinqKrUdqpjqG1Et9HZKUmht6PhZtYOSQv4EI

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/india/tashigang-36-voters-at-worlds-highest-polling-booth/articleshow/69498201.cms?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=ETFBMain&fbclid=IwAR2rXnlVU9CSn_k2-r-RiXlxkhrvBYWiP_fj0-IiUVWi9rssrImToS59MXE

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What ails mainstream education and some remedies - Archie D'Souza

What ails mainstream education 

and 

some remedies

- Archie D'Souza

I was attracted by to a report in the Times of India on July 17, 2018. The headline reads “Government to take action against integrated coaching classes” The first two lines of the report read “State higher education minister Vinod Tawde on Monday described the private integrated coaching classes as the rot that has set in our highly commercialized education system and promised strict action to curb them.” Go to the following link to read the rest:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/65015712.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

In India, private coaching is a USD 10 b plus business.This,I thought, is a symptom of a great malaise our nation, not just the education system, faces. Is this, though, some malignant incurable disease? If what is termed as shadow education is a multi-billion dollar business, which owes its existence to the under-performance of our school and higher education system, one can imagine how deep and grave the malise is. There is, however, also a parallel education system for which numbers are not available; a system which is doing a great deal of good for job-seekers and the economy as a whole.

The main problem with mainstream education is that the system is geared and oriented with one goal in mind – securing a maximum amount of marks, neglecting altogether acquiring of knowledge & skills, developing an analytic mind (thinking, by the way, is discouraged in most schools and colleges in the country) and inculcating the right values. This is where the parallel education system comes in – a system that should have been a part of the mainstream but, because of its absence there, has been filled by lacs, maybe crores, of institutions/academies offering skills and knowledge needed by industry.

I started in 2010 one such institution, Sunrise Academy of Management Studies (SAMS), in Kochi, Kerala. SAMS was set up, not by academicians or politicians, but by people from the corporate sector. Several studies conducted by central & state government bodies as well as others mention the skills gaps that need to be filled to make young people, including graduates & post-graduates, employable. SAMS was a quest to do just that in areas like Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Hotel Management, Property Management and other areas. To a great extent, SAMS achieved the goals it set out to do but age and health issues forced my two partners to give up. I haven't given up though and continue in my quest.

After the closure of SAMS, I continued being associated with smaller institutes across Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which offer short-term courses of various types which don't coach students for exams but skill them up according to industry requirements. Among the industries I train them for are Logistics, Aviation and Hospitality.

According to Indian rating agency ICRA, the logistics sector is expected to achieve a CAGR of 7-8% over the next decade. It is expected to touch USD 215 b in the next two years according to the Economic Surver 2017-18. A great deal of investments in private, public and joint sectors, are being made in logistics infrastructure. Since I've spent a great deal of time in this sector, I know exactly the skill-sets needed by recruiters. When corporate professionals are involved in engineering and management education they contribute to ensuring that skilled, knowledgeable and qualified professionals. Several institutes offer unique certificate and diploma programmes in these subjects.

It was Gandhiji who said that education should be of the heart, head and hand. Unfortunately, our mainstream education does not follow this great message of the Father of the Nation. All it does is orient students towards examinations right from kindergarten to post-graduation. The ability to cram useless subjects and reproduce them in an examination is the basis of student assessment. Languages are part of the syllabus but several students don’t learn to speak or write, several B.Com graduates can’t do simple calculations and MBAs lack communication skills. While, according to latest reports, the standard of employablity of graduates has been steadily improving over the decade, it is still very pathetic and has a long way to go. The end-result is a huge population of qualified but unemployable graduates.

I am not for a moment suggesting that every subject listed in school and university syllabi is useless. Many are indeed useful. However, thanks to faulty delivery methods, students end up learning nothing. Several educational institutions are set up by people who lack the values needed and this fact is reflected in the manner in which these institutions are run. Teachers lack the training needed to discover talent and inculcate it. This is mainly because those who take up teaching do so because they weren’t able to get jobs elsewhere.

Let me list out two examples from personal experience.

• I was addressing a group of MBAs who were embarking on a career in Logistics. In a hall filled with about 200 people, I couldn’t find 5 who could read a map or locate a place on Earth. Less than 20 knew more than 5% of the capitals of countries on a list given. I didn’t even try to test them on world’s currencies. The concept of time-zones was alien to them. These are MBAs embarking on a career in logistics.
• Less than 5% of the graduates I come across know the basics of the subjects they’ve graduated in and less than 1% can communicate in English and this includes those who’ve come from ICSE and CBSE schools.

Universities across the country churn out lacs of Engineering and Management graduates. Are these graduates fit for employment? In my corporate career I must have interviewed hundreds of these graduates and found most of them with no employable skills what-so-ever. These frustrated individuals take up jobs which are in no way related to their qualifications.

So, what is the remedy for this?

• Raise the pay-scales of teachers so that the best talent is attracted to the profession
• Raise the level of teacher training and ensure that training is a continuous process throughout the teachers’ careers
• Encourage people from the corporate sector to take up teaching, especially after retirement.  The corporate experience should make up for lack of qualifications.  Bring in the Gandhian principles of education of the hand, heart and head
• The vocational education sector should be accorded due recognition. The half-hearted measures taken by the current and last governments isn't enough
• Great emphasis should be laid on sports and extra-curricular activities
• MBA programmes should concentrate on people skills rather than lectures
• Classroom sessions should be almost entirely based on case study analysis
• Close interaction between education and agriculture/industry will ensure that society benefits from jointly developed degree syllabi
• The methodology of teaching must change. The emphasis should be on knowledge and skills not performance in examinations
• Instructors in institutions of higher education, with certain exceptions, should have a minimum 3 years corporate experience. For management and engineering this should be 5 years
• 25% of the time a student spend should be on industrial training
• Have a system of refresher courses for teachers to ensure that their skill and knowledge levels are always at the highest level. Some institutions do have faculty development programmes

If the instructions in schools is of the right quality and teachers are paid well. The shadow education system will die a natural death.

https://www.businesstoday.in/top-story/what-went-wrong-with-indian-higher-education/story/328786.html

Transportation, Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals – current & future needs Prof Archie D'Souza

India has consistently, for almost three decades, been among the fastest growing major economies of the world. While serves have been a major contributor to this growth story, manufacturing isn't too far behind. This high level of growth has been riding on investments made by governments at the centre and states, the private & public sectors and through public-private partnership (PPP), on infrastructure projects. Primary among these are ports, airports, roads, special economic zones (SEZ), industrial clusters & corridors, dedicated railway lines for freight and warehousing, to name but a few areas.

These investments have resulted in a great deal of opportunities for professionals at every level. Thanks to this and various initiatives from the HRD and Labour & Employment ministers, there courses are being developed to train professionals in the field of Logistics & Supply Chain Management (SCM).  The Ministry of Labour and Employment (MOLE) has come out with a number of vocational programmes to train people at every level in the field of Logistics.  Details of these skill development programmes are available on the MOLE and National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) websites.  Similarly, universities, in their MBA programmes, have started introducing Logistics as an integral part of the courses that students have to undergo. We will look at courses later. Right now, let us look at the industry.

Another benefit that this high growth brings is a greater demand for goods of all kinds, across segments, whether they're luxury goods or products for mass-consumption. Wherever new manufacturing units are set up, plant and machinery need to be procured and installed. Once commissioned, these units need to procure, among other things, raw materials, components and packing materials to ensure that production takes place. These have to reach the factories. Similarly, finished goods need to be moved from plant to market. Agricultural products too need to move from farms to consumers. Before goods leave their origin, they, almost always, need to be packed. Also required is storage at the origins, destinations and in-between. All these activities need the services of professionals, called logisticians. The business of logistics requires crores of professionals, at various levels, taking part in myriads of activities.

What is so notable is the fact that while professionals in many industries may have observed a notable decline in skills amongst recent graduates, during the past couple of decades, the opposite is true in the field of SCM.  I can safely ascertain that we’ve become a profession and a recognised one at that.  As stated, several universities are offering specialised courses in these areas.  This is the trend world over.  Globalisation of the economy has become a reality that we can’t run away from.  Technology has been upgraded and supply chains have become very sophisticated.  Therefore, good quality SCM professionals are a necessity without which no economy will survive.

In the past and to some extent in the present too, universities have not been working in sync with industry.  However, in the field of Transportation and Logistics this trend is changing.  The contribution to the world economy of shipping, aviation, road & rail infrastructure and every other sector related to the field of Logistics is tremendous.  Without transportation there would be no trade and most of the world’s populations would starve.  Centres of production and consumption are no longer close to each other.  International transportation infrastructure connects the two.  Without shipping, air and land transport services this would never have been possible.

Food grains, fertilisers, cement, coal, ore and a host of products are transported in bulk carriers; crude oil and other liquids as well as LPG & LNG and several petroleum products – crude and finished – move in container ships; container ships, ro-ro services, break-bulk, reefers, etc. – we can make a long list of the kind of shipping services available.  Without shipping the entire world economy would collapse.  Water is the most economic mode of transporting most goods.  Only pipelines are cheaper for a single liquid or gaseous commodity moving in very large quantities.  Shipping services also leave a much smaller carbon footprint compared to the mother modes of transportation.  Here again, pipelines are the exception.

Air services also play a major role in international trade.  Transportation of goods by air has reached unimaginable proportions.  Today the world’s major passenger carriers earn a great deal of revenues from cargo, more often than not, exceeding passenger ticket revenues.  Several major airlines, e.g. Lufthansa Singapore Airlines and Emirates Airlines, have hived off their cargo divisions into wholly owned subsidiaries.  In addition, we have all-cargo airlines and integrators – cargo airlines offering door-to-door services for freight.  The variety and range of services that all these airlines offer are numerous.

Airports, ports, truck & train terminals, courier service providers, etc. all require top quality logistics professionals.  Apart from these, there are a range of intermediaries like freight forwarders, customs brokers, shipping & air cargo agents, etc. that need professionals.  Manufacturing and service undertakings too require logistics and SCM professionals.  So, the opportunities are virtually unlimited.

What is Logistics?

Logistics is the universal thread or pipeline that plans, coordinates and implements the delivery of goods and services to customers all over the world. As we've seen, without trade there can be no economic development and without transportation, there can be no trade. Transportation, the most important component of logistics, is the life-blood of the world economy. There are several other components logistics. Professionals in this field, i.e. logicians, manage and coordinate the activities in the global pipeline to ensure an effective flow of materials and information from the time a need arises until it is satisfied; often beyond, e.g. equipment that is supplied needs servicing, viz. maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO). Service providers need to procure, move and store spares for this purpose. This flow and storage of goods encompasses planning activities, implementation and control in both forward and reverse directions.

The sector currently employs several crores of people and will create many more jobs in the next two or three decades. Some of the activities or functions of industrial logistics include, order processing, inventory management, transportation, storage (viz. warehousing), packaging, customs clearance and several value-added services.

Logistics involves so many critical business activities that nearly every business organisation, from the smallest to the largest, requires, either through direct employment or indirectly, professionals in the field. Needs range from CEO to drivers and handlers. In other words, besides qualified persons, a number of unqualified, but trained, people are needed. Also required are analysists, software developers and experts in robotonics and artificial intelligence, the list seems endless.

Career Paths for Logistics Professionals

Listed here are some of the career paths in logistics:

• planners and analysists
• software developers
• robotonics and AI professionals
• port and airport managers
• shipping, airline, road and rail transportation enterprises
• warehousing and materials handling
• inventory planning and control
• procurement and negotiating
• legal experts, especially those conversant with international law
• insurers
• packers
• surveyors

As one can see, most of the jobs in the sector do not require highly qualified individuals. At the same time, those employed could get themselves qualified while on-the-job. Universities and institutions across India and the world, offer certificate, diploma and degree courses in logistics, including an MBA. Indeed, the industry, as well as professionals employed here are poised for exponential growth.

[The writer is a former logistics professional and currently adjunct professor at Dayanand Sagar University]