RANKING officials and senior executives, working for government departments or public and private sectors, have a euphemistic technique of avoiding callers who seek an appointment or ring them up in pursuance of a public service.

In keeping with the practice dating back to colonial times, nowhere in India will the personal staff of any big shot deign to take the numbers of callers and return the call when their sahibs are free.

Even in these days of citizens charters and customer delight, sahibs consider it infra dig to extend the courtesy of calling back.

It is a fair bet that the brush-off you will get during work hours will be that the big shot is in a meeting. In nine out of 10 cases, this can be true also, since reserving issues for meetings is an excellent way of stalling decisions.

Meetings also provide a sense of collective security to participants who usually are leery of taking decisions on their own, lest they get into trouble later.

Thus, officials fritter away their whole day running from one meeting to another unable to meet visitors or apply their mind in a focused manner to problems demanding their attention.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, when he was the Prime Minister, therefore ordered Wednesdays to be observed as meetingless days so that on at least one day in the week, officials set time apart for callers and files. This certainly revved up disposal to a conspicuous degree.

The time has come for extending the idea to visitations to and from other countries. Comings and goings by dignitaries almost every week, the receptions and send-offs and the preparations to be made several months in advance — all these unnecessary rituals and ceremonials eat up a lot of time.

Usually, there is nothing concrete or tangible to show for all the hurly-burly.

The same result can easily be achieved by pressing into service the facilities of information technology, video-conferencing and instant messaging, and by making maximum use of diplomatic personnel stationed in the respective countries who often find themselves at a loose end.

Why not the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, think of a Visitless Year to save himself, his colleagues and top functionaries from these distractions? He may find the effect on performance electrifying.

B. S. Raghavan

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