PRIVATISE AND PROSPER - BWSSB STYLE

63.  PRIVATISE AND PROSPER –  BWSSB STYLE

Like the story of the visionary businessman Srihari Khoday from some 25 years ago, here is another real life recounting of my brush with another equally business minded agency – the Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board, fondly called the BWSSB :  With some officers of the Board, to be more precise.

As a very strict rule, I do not entertain requests for my services from Governmental Agencies, Parastatals, Govt. undertakings etc., for reasons well known to those who may have had the misfortune to deal with these rascally entities.

About 20 years or so ago the BWSSB came to the happy conclusion that it could not handle the K&C Valley STP ( the one behind the Karnataka Golf course ) satisfactorily enough with its own resources of men and materials.  A decision was therefore taken to entrust Operation & Maintenance of the STP to private hands.  A very laudable decision by all counts no doubt - but for one deal breaking consideration which I was about to discover.

I was pushed, sweet talked, persuaded and cajoled to pick up this tender by a very close associate of mine at that time with the solemn assurance that it was for the greater good of the society and for the benefit of the long suffering Bellandur lake which was at the receiving end of Millions of litres of sewage from half of Bangalore city.  Also, the BWSSB officer in charge of this exercise was a long time friend, a class mate of his from school and college days.  Despite initial reluctance and nervous trepidation that I felt, I steeled myself to venture into hitherto uncharted territories : If Captain Kirk and his crew of Starship Enterprise can do it, so can I.

I studied word by word, para by para and page by page the tender document until I could recite the tender backwards. This method of dissecting a tender document  to the last comma and full stop was drilled into me in my first job in India with Dorr-Oliver Inc. immediately on my return from the USA.  And as prescribed in Section 3.5 of the Tender document, I visited the  STP for the customary site inspection.  From more than a  Kilometer away on the lonely Wind Tunnel Road,  I was unerringly guided to the spot by the ever increasing stench of untreated sewage. No google map was required to home in to this STP.

The STP itself presented a picture of a major disaster struck area.  Dismantled and stripped down pumps and forlorn motors strewn around helter skelter ; Sewage overflowing from channels and drains, with swarms of mosquitoes proliferating in this happy breeding ground ; Less than 30 % of Surface aerators which deliver Oxygen to the bugs which treat sewage, churning the surface of tanks, which in itself was a minor miracle.  There was not a single human soul in sight.  I beat a hasty retreat from  this unholy hell hole, now firmly determined that no amount of pushing, sweet talking, persuasion or cajoling will make me participate in this tender.

The final kick in my ass for this crazy adventurism was delivered by the BWSSB classmate himself who took me aside and gently broke to me the unwritten clause and condition of the tender for privatisation of O&M of the STP.

Apparently the STP generated a lot of organic sludge from its settling tanks which were the only units which worked in the STP,  and  which was good farmland manure.  And in those days, when Bangalore city was not the urban conglomeration and concrete jungle that it is today, there were farmlands and farmers in close vicinity to the STP.  These farmers paid Rs. 400 per tractor load to take away the manure for their use.  The total amount per day thus collected ran into several thousands of Rupees.

The classmate from the BWSSB then assured me that the only Service Level Agreement they would hold me to was that the entire proceeds of sale of organic manure from the STP should be off the books and passed back to the officers who were good enough to make the privatisation exercise happen.  There was no further requirement from the STP and no questions asked.  Bellandur lake be damned.

Three cheers for a Happy New Year  and all hail Privatisation – BWSSB style.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                                                April 14, 2016