Automation is for weenies

Automation is not such a great thing in Indian context. It is cheaper to employ someone than to use machinery to automate the work. Neither is self service such a favoured concept. Employment generation is what we do.

There are examples of this everywhere around us. BBMP officials once bought, rather imported a few road sweeper trucks, probably influenced by what they saw in some foreign country in one of their educational junkets. However, due to the pressure from everyone, they had to keep these trucks un-operative, left to rust and die unceremoniously so that these don't threaten employment of the road sweeping crew. In my office there is a door that doesn't close properly. There is a security guy stationed at the door, whose only job throughout the day is to close that door if it is left open by someone!! I sometimes think it is commendable that bank ATMs became popular in India. It could very well have been a human sitting in a little counter throughout the day!

Going against this trend, BESCOM, the Bangalore Electricity supply folks, set up an automated kiosks for paying bills at their JP Nagar office. Anyone could pay bills all through the day at these kiosks. Quickly, there were a number of people who either did not want to or could not read the instructions and started getting frustrated that the machine doesn't work. I think we Indians are notorious for our inability to read instructions and maps. Further, the machine does not accept worn out notes. It took a long time for people to pay bills through this kiosk. Usually, a number of people would surround the machine, discuss about the right way of using the machine and curse BESCOM.

I had been there some time last year and I saw a change. Now there was a BESCOM employee whose job was to operate the machine on behalf of bill payers. This was kind of defeating the purpose of automated kiosk, but speeded up the operation for users and improved customer satisfaction.

I went there again last month and I saw that this concept had gone even further. Sure, the operator was there, but now there was another person, a cashier, who sat with a cash bag on a chair near the kiosk. The operator collected cash from us, exchanged old, worn out notes for crisp ones from the cashier and fed them into the machine. This was to ensure that the operation goes on smoothly. Now there are 2 humans to help out with a process that is supposed to be fully automated. Hail automation! Hail self service!!

Contrary example where self service has worked very well? Sukh Sagar, Adigas, etc.