Facing government office bureaucracy in Bangladesh
The national election of Bangladesh is coming up very soon. The towns are all covered up in campaign templates. And for the first time in my life I will be able to vote. Since I was a child, I have always wanted to vote just like my parents. Because I thought that, when I’ll be able to vote I’ll become a proper adult. It was just a dream of a child who was trying to catch up to the grown-ups of her family. Well now my childish dream is coming true because this year I am going to vote. As I did not have a national ID, my mother took the responsibility of getting me one. I finally got my smart card this year but getting it done was a pretty ‘good’ experience.
Firstly I had to get the NID form from the nearest police office. I filled up the form and attached the necessary attested documents. After that my mother and i went to the NID office in Agargaon as instructed, to take my picture for the smart card, submit the NID form and finish any other formalities. When we went to the Agargaon NID office the first time the person who was supposed to be in charge of taking picture and the digital sign was absent. So we could not submit the form that day. We went back again after 3 days. That day we were able to submit it and finish the other things that we were asked to do. They gave me a recite with a ID number and asked us to come back after 6 months. By that time the smart card will be ready. When we went there after six months, the office floor was almost completely empty; there were only a few staff, cleaning up their desks. When my mother asked them what was going, they said the whole office transferred in Segun Bagicha. It took us almost two hours to get to Agargaon and then the office wasn’t even there anymore. A week later my mother and I went to Segun Bagicha. It took us almost an hour to find the new NID office. After finding the office we asked a staff if my smart card had arrived or not. He told us to go to room no: 604. We went there and had to wait a little until the officer working there finished handling the task on hand. When i told her that we were here for our smart cards, she asked us some question about when we submitted our form and some other things. After a few minutes she told us go to another room. We went there and asked the staffs working there the same question again, whether smart cards were ready or not. They told us the person in charge of distributing the smart card still hadn’t come yet and that we would have to wait a bit longer. They also told us that we will be informed when the officer arrives. So we started waiting. After waiting for almost one and a half hour I started to take stroll along the corridor of the office. When I reached the end of the corridor and I saw a room in which a person was giving smart cards to some people. I went back to where my mom was sitting and told her what I saw and took her to that room. She asked the staff in the room if he was giving smart cards. He said that he has been doing that for the last one hour. This means he already arrived an hour ago and we were not informed about it. As we were very much tired of waiting, we just wanted to get things done as soon as possible and go home just like everyone else in that office, without further delay we gave him my recite which had my ID number and asked if my smart card had arrived. He took the recite and went to the storage to search for it. After twenty minutes he came back and said that my smart card hadn’t arrived and asked us to come back again after two months. So, after that there was nothing to do but to go home and wait for another two months. Though, after two months I did get my NID.
The main thing that I want to point out is that there is a huge miscommunication between bureaucracy and the public. We were not properly informed that the office was shifting to another place. There were people who came from very far without knowing the office wasn’t there anymore. Even the website did not have any information about it. There is also a huge miscommunication in the bureaucracy itself. To run an administration the subdivisions of work must combine their effort as a whole. And for that an effective network of communication and control is needed. When the administrators are able to guide the public in the right way, the service will be considered proper. Another point is that the amount of capable workmen is very low compared to the huge population of our country. Most of the office workers are 3rd class gazetted officers such as clerks. The amount of 2nd class gazetted officers who has potential is too small. The ratio of staffs who will handle the general public is pretty low compared to the ratio of population. The control over the division and subdivisions of work is very lenient. Taylor Gulick has said that the more the work is subdivided, the greater is the danger of confusion and the greater is the need of overall supervision and co-ordination. When there is a lack of control, order and supervision the quality of service naturally drops. That is when miscommunication between bureaucracy and public, even inside the bureaucracy itself is seen.
Providing proper services to such a huge population is a very hard job. Handling so many people every day is not easy and sometimes very stressful. And there is no perfect system to get us through our bureaucratic problems with utmost proficiency. But there is always room for development within systems, which can help run an administration as efficiently as possible.
