Singapore and What India can learn…

The Discovery Channel played a very nice program - History of Singapore. This program talks about how Singapore became a modern, clean and progressive state from a rouge shanty town. After secession from Malaysia, the Singapore Government adopted many policies that helped them in attaining the status they have today. For a moment, ignore the extreme cases such as ban on chewing gum or archaic punishments for graffiti etc. There were some wonderful policies making a lot of business sense that prevailed and added to prosperity of this tiny country.

Take Singapore Airlines, for instance. This is actually a state run airline with a very specific mandate for profitability. The instructions were clear – we will support you from infrastructure perspective, if you make profits. It is the case with Changi Airport and the Singapore port – both state of the art facilities and respected world wide. In interest of productivity, strikes/trade unions were abolished and a state sponsored capitalism was introduced.

India boasts of many PSUs. Some of them are also run well. But most of them are mismanaged companies, that if were not supported by the Government, would have had to file for bankruptcy.Did we ever hear about the profitability targets or customer satisfaction targets being given to the babus at PSUs?

When Mrs. G nationalized the banks or the sole profit making airline with great prospects that India had at that time, did she use such a rationale?

The decay of services and apathy towards customers that followed the nationalization was very much felt till the economic reforms brought in formidable competitors. Could JRD have tolerated the literal down-fall of Air India from the world map of airlines?

While expressing his opinions, the ex-Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kwan Yew said that the grand scale of housing project they started relied on the concept of ownership because when people own something, they are likely to take better care of it. Margaret Thatcher also adopted that strategy when she started the ambitious housing projects in Great Britain. People were made to buy flats instead of renting. Where do institutions like MHADA or the mandarins of Urban Development Ministry stand? Even after nearly 60 years of our independence, why are so many people homeless or teetering on the border of being one?

Not everything in Singapore is necessarily hunky-dory. There was much to learn from the policies of this tiny country, but for our lawmakers, who even today pull the populist wool over their eyes…. Will someone think of the country first?