- The author is a retired Joint Secretary from Tripura's Planning & Coordination Department and wants to provide suggestions to improve the department based on their experience. - The author observes that there is a lack of continuity in leadership as Secretaries and Directors are frequently changed, preventing long-term vision and mission from being established. - It is suggested that the Director role be made a dedicated professional position held for at least 5 years to address this issue of continuity. - Other recommendations include strengthening evaluation of projects, improving training for officers, and generally making the department more professional and data-driven in its planning and evaluation processes.

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A PERVASIVE CONCERN FOR THE STATE OF TRIPURA
BY: B. BHATTACHARYA
I have retired from the Planning & Coordination Department a couple of years back as Joint Secretary. Since Planning and Coordination Department is one of the pivotal Departments in Govt of Tripura, I had to interact with all the departments of the State. The interaction is still lively and fresh and in fact, haunts me till today. I often wonder, whether the role played by the Planning & Coordination Department is sufficient enough to cater to the need of the hour. In my service career, I did not find the appropriate vehicle for expressing my thoughts aimed at better coordinated functioning of the department- mainly because of established hierarchical hindrances. Now I am retired. Though retired , I still feel , I have obligation to this department and I shall be failing in my duty if I don’t key in the shortcomings and weakness of the department , as I have felt in my own way.
It is needless to emphasise that the basic components of any planning process in any department comprise Planning, Organising, Staffing, Leading and Controlling.
According to Peter Drucker, the highly acclaimed Management Guru “ Planning is a continuous process of making entrprenurial decisions ( risk taking) , systematically and with best possible knowledge of their futurity, organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions and measuring the result of those decisions against the expectations through an organized systematic feedback.”
Dalton E. McFarland’s definition of planning takes into account the dynamic nature of the environment. He defines planning as follows:
“Planning is a concept of executive function that embodies the skills of anticipating, influencing and controlling the nature and direction of change.”
My suggestions derive strength from both these definitions above.
It has been perceived that the Planning is a continuous process of making present entrepreneurial decisions (risk taking) systematically and with best possible knowledge of their futurity, organizing systematically, and I may limit my discussion for the time being to these two aspects alone.

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What I have felt is that the continuity aspect of the definitions above is conspicuously missing in the department. In the span of two years, I worked under at least 4(four) Secretaries and 3(Three) Directors. If the Secretary and the Director of the department are not given considerable time to translate their vision continuously and systematically, the mission objective gets completely lost. The department appears to have failed to establish its core value and therefore, the mission objective has lost its significance considerably. I am afraid, it has not been clearly pronounced and has not permeated through the downstream of the hierarchy.
I have also felt that the Planning Department is not like other ordinary departments of the Govt., it has a nature of technicality of its own. Therefore, the Director of the department should be someone who has sufficient and considerable experience in the planning process. It may not be at all necessary that he has to be an IAS/ TCS Officer –any person with proven record in the Planning & Evaluation field may hold the position and that too for at least 5 years so that continuity aspect is properly addressed. The administrative part may be easily taken care of by the Secretary of the Department.
One possible measure that the department can think of simultaneously is to impart knowledge to the existing officers by rigorous and vocational training in Agartala itself. The officers may also be enrolled in a distance education programme for MBA or similar other degree at the cost of the state exchequer or alternatively they may pursue a professional degree from a "brick-and- mortar" University. There may be some investment for the time being but the return will be enormous.
The department badly needs visionary officers. What the department was doing then( Perhaps it is doing so now also) is inviting proposals for NLCPR, ACA, NEC, etc. projects, from various departments and without any apparent evaluation of the necessity of implementation of the projects for the welfare of the state, is sending these project proposals to GoI or NEC for sanction. The problem area of the State is not known to most of the officers of the department and therefore, they cannot also evaluate the proposals and suggest the best possible alternative. The department is performing on ad hoc basis. The proposals received from the various departments could have been sent back to the DM & Collectors who are at the grass root level and who could have by turn examined the necessity of implementation of the projects

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by means of the various field functionaries. The Zilla Parishads can also play a pivotal role. The proposals received from the departments should be elaborately discussed in the Zilla Parishad This may create stakeholding as their voice would be listened to at the time of creation of project/plan itself.
The District Planning Committees should be given steam and revitalised and put to action in the exercise of evaluation. The approach should be Bottom-Up one instead of Top- Down Approach. An engineering wing may be considered to be set up in the Planning department and this wing may be given the responsibility to examine the viability of the projects by CPM, PERT, Gnatt chart, etc. technique. After completion of the projects, the projects should be inspected and examined by a team constituted from the engineering and administrative wing. This may cause chagrin to other departments but since the passage of Govt of India money is through the Finance and partially through the Planning Department, both the Departments can hardly afford the luxury of remaining indifferent to what has actually happened in the field. The evaluation wing of the Planning Department should be more strengthened and it would be their responsibility to evaluate and monitor each and every project.
And again, in Tripura promotion is also made solely on the strength of seniority perhaps barring one sole exception. The merit is hardly given any importance and age old graphic rate scaling method which is generally dominated by Hallo and horn effect is the only determinant of the efficiency of a particular employee. But there is scope of 360 degree performance appraisal and Tripura may earn the distinction of being the first State to introduce it where the performance of an employee will be evaluated not only by his superiors but by his peers and his subordinates as well. But this approach is also highly debatable till today and even most of the MNCs have not dared to implement it.
To sum up:
 To post one full time professional Director with a consolidated pay and with all necessary perks associated with the post. The days of Socrates or an omniscient person without specialisation in one key area are already over. Since Planning is a continuous process, frequent changes of Director or Secretary go against the spirit of

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consistency. The retirement age of the Director may be 65 to address the continuity aspect furthermore; ;
 To start examination of all NLCPR, ACA, etc proposals by the agency of the DM & Collectors in regard to the necessity of implementation of the projects sent by various Departments ;
 To revitalise , the District Planning Committee, if not done already
 To introduce one engineering wing in the Planning Department. No project should be sent to GoI without the exercise of CPM, PERT, etc. technique and without evaluation done by the evaluation team. The team should put their seal of approval before sending any proposal forward;
 The department should also be equipped with the State of the art equipments and useful software.
 To set up the evaluation wing afresh under the guidance of a professional officer for post evaluation of the implemented projects;
 To send all the Deputy Directors, Assistant Directors, Research Officers in phased manner to a B School for a knowledge management course. They should also be encouraged in undertaking periodical field visits to get an exposure of the ground realities and to collect first hand primary information;
 To examine the viability of introduction of 360 degree performance appraisal. If it is not feasible , the improvement of the graphic rating scale method with additional parameters may be considered ;
 To consider introduction of TPS cadre service;
 To start appreciating the employee for the good work done by him by way of providing him monetary incentive, however, small it may be.
o HP gives the Golden Banana award to its best employee. The history of the introduction of the Golden Banana is quite interesting. One key executive was particularly pleased with the job one employee did on a special report, and when that employee came to his office, the executive riffled in his desk

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drawer for something to show his appreciation. What he came up with was the banana for his lunch. Thus was born H-P's Golden Banana Award, which is a highly valued honour in the company today. According to Nelson’s survey, a simple thank you note from a superior officer for doing a good work goes a long way to motivate an employee.
 There is a tendency in Tripura to give re-employment to retired Govt. officers/employees. It not only demoralises the existing officers but may also impede the process of bringing in fresh ideas. Those who have retired are at liberty to seek employment somewhere else where the sway of the State Government does not extend. The windows should be always kept open for cross ventilation and for letting out the old used air and letting in the new fresh air. To answer to the need of any particular department, the State Government may hire the services of professional ones in exceptional cases as consultant.
AND lastly, a concerted effort be made to sell the department and for that matter the State itself to the media. The India Toady Group has constantly portraying Tripura very poorly. In the September 18, 2009 issue, Tripura’s overall ranking among the 10(ten) small states is 9th and only above Meghalaya. I believe and firmly believe that Tripura is one of the best governed states – both administratively and financially. Its fiscal measures are excellent. The law and order position has considerably improved. The infrastructure facilities in terms of roads, bridges, railway communication is improving in the rate that may cause envy of other states. The Health facilities, is much better today though there is enough scope of improvement. But where is that concerted effort to tell the world where Tripura stands today?
It may not be out of context to mention that while I went to Chennai Apollo in 2002, I found lots of patients from Arabian worlds. I asked them why they were queuing up here since they have the best financial resources to build up hospitals that may stand at par with the best hospitals around the world. The answer was a revelation to me. He told that they have very good buildings, they have the best available equipments but they have not the train of doctors who are committed to the cause of the patients. The mushrooming of Nursing homes at Agartala is a pointer in this regard. Setting up of two medical

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colleges and fresh endeavour for setting up more hospitals are surely laudable. Many of our doctors, needless to say, are well qualified and they have sufficient concern for patients. But an effort may be undertaken for benchmarking of the standard -especially in the Health Department. It is very important in the sense that clientele of Apollo, Care, Vellore, etc Hospitals is comprised substantially of Bangladeshi patients. Due to proximity of Tripura to Bangladesh, the vast stream of patients from Bangladesh will flock to Tripura, if the standard of health care facility is made at par with the best hospitals of India.
The order is tall and large enough and as Abraham Lincoln had said: “These are a big order, but see what you can do...... “
The write up stems from the core of my heart but most of my observations / suggestions are subjective in nature and are based on my perception and my personal understanding of things and therefore shouldn’t be taken at face value without further scrutiny by experts.