Last week we had talked about ‘dang tapao’ or ‘making do’ and how this attitude was leading to poor services and manufacturing and was harmful for individuals as well as the organisations which were not trying to counter the influence of this inertness. But there is a much darker side to this attitude as well.
Even a quick Google search revealed that 10 people had been killed when a gas cylinder of a passenger van exploded on 25 October, 15 people had been killed in a similar incident on 12 July, and another 16 people were killed in January. These incidents were all of gas cylinders exploding in public transport. I am not looking at explosions at home where capricious husbands or in-laws might have something to do with such incidents. At least, 40 odd people killed in just these three incidents, and there must be others too.
The question is whether the cylinders installed in these vehicles were of at least minimum acceptable quality or not, and whether the installation was done properly. If in either case we had ‘making do’ happen, and corners were cut to save money and inferior quality was used or less than proper care was taken in installation, then these were not accidents, these were murders. I am not making a legal point here and allow that these could be cases of criminal neglect or manslaughter and not murder, but that is not the point: the point is that ‘making do’ has led to tremendously costly outcomes and is not just an issue of ‘lack of excellence’ but of following even minimum acceptable standards. The motive of ‘making do’ does not really matter: it could be lack of competence, lack of inertness or the greed for profit, but it is the outcome that matters. If the outcome endangers the lives of others and flouts minimum quality standards set for a particular product or process, then it is unacceptable.
A separate tragic incident that also makes this point very forcefully was the case of the bus that turned turtle in Kallar Kahar area and where we lost many school children. A colleague wrote about it in detail in Pakistan Today (Sunday Review of 16 October, 2011, page 6: Affordable but at what cost?), so I will not give the details. But the fact is that poor quality engineering done under circumstances where no minimum standards have been fixed – and even where minimum standards have been stipulated there are no effective regulatory, monitoring and evaluation systems – proved fatal. And we do not even have systems for bringing those who cut corners to justice.
To take the case of faulty gas cylinders again, the people who installed these cylinders, the people who got the cylinders installed, and the government officials who were supposed to check whether the installation was of minimum standard or not should all be held liable. Cases should be registered against all three of them and they should be brought to justice. Even in the Kallar Kahar case, instead of just trying to find scapegoats in the bus company or school administration, there should be cases against people who are supposed to check the quality of bus cabins to ensure they are road worthy.
If we have not yet stipulated minimum standards for these things, then it is time the government takes its regulatory functions seriously and does it. If they do not, the ministers and other relevant people should be held accountable for these deaths in a court of law: they are supposed to protect public interest, they should be answerable for governmental negligence.
It is not a difficult task to structure regulation for these areas. In the case of gas cylinders for vehicles, if they come fitted from auto factories, the auto factories are responsible and liable for any quality issues. They can be given standards for cylinders and if there is any proof that they have not followed these, they should be prosecuted. But the incidents mentioned above did not take place with factory-fitted cylinders. It seems they happened where transporters have had CNG kits fitted later. The government should regulate these fitters and ‘license’ them and stipulate that people should only get their vehicles converted to CNG at these licensed fitters.
Then if there is a mishap the fitter can be held responsible. And if a transporter goes to non-licensed fitters he will face liability issues. And since vehicles get their ‘tokens’, for road use, renewed every year, if they have had a CNG kit fitted after purchase of vehicle, they can be made to submit details of the authorised dealer from where they got the kit installed. It should be simple and not too costly to do this. But it will raise the cost of ‘making do’ and cutting corners significantly for transporters, for people who do CNG fitting, and for the government officials who are supposed to regulate these things in the public interest.
There are many other markets, and some very crucial ones, in which the cost of negligence – in getting a proper regulatory framework in place and making people liable for cutting corners, and acting criminally (in case the regulatory framework is in place) – can be very high. The markets for medicines and edibles are clear examples. Every so often we hear of people dying or getting ill because of spurious drugs and adulterated food items. What about the big brands in the food and beverage industry – are they all following the regulations? What about pharmaceuticals – why is oftentimes the same medicine, same brand, purchased from UAE or Europe/US more effective than the one produced locally? What about the quality of packaged milk? We were told gawala milk was not good, are the regulations on the packaged milk industry being monitored and implemented?
After the Kallar Kahar tragedy it was announced that there will be an inquiry and those responsible for the tragedy will be held accountable. Nothing has come of it till now. But the question is, even if some people are held accountable, will these be the right people? Will it be people who were supposed to set minimum standards for making bus shells, will it be people who shaved on quality, or will it be some scapegoats? And on the issue of gas cylinders, we have not even started to think of the problem. We are still treating them as ‘accidents’.
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]
