After the LDMC course life took another turn in that I was posted to Army HQ PMO PLAN AREN (Project Management Organisation Plan Army Radio Engineered Net Work) then housed on the basement of South Block despite my explicit request to the powers that be for a posting to any where but Delhi.
With no space to place a table and chair for me I was asked if I had any leave to my credit and on getting an affirmative reply and with a sigh of relief I was promptly dispatched on two months leave. I was also handed over a brown envelope from MS Branch with a cryptic note inside that I have been cleared for the next rank which took ages to come. With the emergency in force we were advised to be discrete and careful when on phone it was said that 10% of all the calls were monitored.
Delhi posting is stressful to start with. New job new environment under standing protocol and procedure dealing with a new entity called MOD. Every thing at top priority required immediately, leaving little time for settling down, children’s admission, and changing houses and so forth: by the time one gets proper accommodation once again it is time moving to another station another posting. Over time, one also develops firm roots difficult to uproot once again.
Brig Basu the Director PMO Plan AREN was on of the technical pillars of the Corps with his main attention on the development of the new generation equipment for the Plan he had given scant thought to the fielding of the concept. Lt Gen Sapra the So-in-C back from a recent visit to UK where he was the witness to the fielding of the British Army’s own Area Grid Network named ‘Ptarmigan’ was paranoid about the how where and when of the fielding of our own Plan resulting in daily tense encounters between the two of them leaving them at the end flustered. The tension would also percolate down to us in the Project; most stressful, for us the system managers, were the weekly briefings, under the shadow of the on going feud, to the So-in C. Soon, as a knee- jerk reaction Sapra brought in Brig Shymal Ghosh as the Director.
Ghosh with a pleasant demeanour excellent command of the language, articulate and with diplomatic manners a former military attaché at Prague was an enigma. As and when we would enter his office with a problem, we would receive a lot of tea and sympathy, patient listening and platitudes and after some nice time spent with him come out quite happy. However, we would have not received any suggestions or directions from him, leaving us to tackle the problem on our own. In retrospect it was not a bad management technique to follow at least it made his staff self reliant.
As System Manager (I) responsible for the induction of the new generation equipment Net radios, Radio relay, Automatic Electronic Switch, Electronic exchanges, Radio trunk and local extensions secrecy equipment among others for the Area grid System of communication planned to be fielded under the project I was controlling a very large budget.
The budget preparation a long exhaustive and exhausting exercise commenced with discussions of developing and production with agencies like TFIR, BEL and ITI their projections for the year being then converted in to figures based on a well tried formula of 20 % advance followed by progressive advances based on the progress of development and production.
I would prepare the draft budget in accordance with the format under two heads ‘New measures and Maintenance’ and obtain the Director’s approval. BE (Budget Estimates) were finalised only after protracted discussions and concurrence of Defence Finance in between I had also to satisfy the Directorate of Financial Planning under DCOAS in respect of the Foreign Exchange requirements which with extreme shortages was at a premium those days.
Nearing the RE (Revised Estimates) stage would start my efforts to pressurise the Financial Directors of the agencies involved to draw the funds in accordance with their projections but with little success. With massive slippages from their optimistic projections the face of the budget at the RE would change drastically necessitated major changes down words. The Actuals had no resemblance with the B.E. and not even the R.E., leaving me red-faced this happening more than once with me persisting with the formula I was soon dubbed a perpetual optimistic by Ghosh.
How I a lowly Lt Col posted at Army HQ happened to encounter the high and mighty no less than the Defence Minister himself merits narrating. It was closing time one evening when with the Director away most of us were in the process of closing our brief cases (generally used for carrying the pack lunch from home and possibly the newspaper) when an urgent call was received from the ministry that the Defence Minister desired to be briefed about the Project. With the Dy Director showing little enthusiasm and other system managers also opting out with one excuse or other, the onerous task fell to my lot. With my briefcase bulkier stuffed with the Project files in addition to the now empty Tiffin box, I walked to the South Block from Sena Bhawan, climbed the staircase to the first floor and with extreme apprehension presented myself at the door of the ministers ’s office.
How I briefed the minister in the next half hour or so of the complex Project and what he under stood from my briefing is for one to guess. However it must have gone well since after a few questions and my clarifications he appeared to be satisfied thanked me and released me from his august presence.
I had now the daunting task, left without transport, the bus having left long back and the whole area now deserted with no hope of finding a taxi or some other transport of some how to find my way back to the flat in SP Marg officers enclave. It was once again Jeet, my dear wife, who saved the situation for me. Getting worried with my not showing up at the normal time, she had driven in our faithful Herald down to Sena Bhawan and was desperately searching for me in the now deserted complex, when she happen to notice me trudging down from the South Block side, she heaved relief. I was equally relieved to notice the familiar green car in distance and quickened my pace and changing seats with her drove us home in cheer.
Brig Ghosh extremely conscious of PR was appalled when he learnt about my briefing the defence minister the previous evening, and not too sure as to how the briefing by me would have gone he now became a worried person. With a view to retrieve the situation, as perceived by him, he got some charts and display boards prepared by the draftsman {Power Point Presentations and LCD projectors were still in the distant future) for the ensuing steering committee meeting to be presided by the defence minister himself. What the members understood from his briefing and if at at all they were any wiser by looking at the diagram depicting the grid with a multitude of triangles joined by a number of lines is best judged as none had any doubts as to what the triangles and inverted triangles represented.
The weekly audience with Sapra, that were started during the time of Basu continued with the associated pre and post interview tensions, till the arrival of Brig Shanker Mehrotra replacing Ghosh and there hangs a tale.
It was only a few days after his taking over that it was my turn to brief the So-in-C and as was the practice I walked in the Director’s room. Mehrotra was appalled to learn about the practice being followed, and asked me to return to my table, picked up some papers and briskly walked towards the corner room, on the sixth floor, the tigers den. I am nor privy to what happened between the two but to our utter relief the weekly tortures came to an end.
Brig Lakshman Singh, VSM (Retd)
No comments:
Post a Comment