The Hindu Business Line : Welcome to the ignorance economy!

The new economy has brought us face to face with so much of advanced technology but all systems and devices can work only as well as the knowledge levels of the people who install and run or maintain them.

According to business and organisation pundits the world over, we are supposed to be living in an ever-growing world of knowledge. The knowledge economy is expected to be the salvation of India's educated classes - famous for our technical skills and familiarity with the English language. Yet, if we look around us, the reality is hilariously different.

Listen closely, when you are dealing with the much-celebrated service-economy comprising the professionals, the technicians, the mechanics and even the ubiquitous delivery people and counter staff at retail establishments, all you get is: "I do not know Madam, wait please, I will call my supervisor!" Or "I don't know all that, Sir, maybe some technical problem, Sir; this is what we have been told. I shall give you the complaint number, Sir, and they will call you back." Of course, they end with the favourite conversational sign-off in Tamil Nadu: "Okayva?"

Sometime ago, I installed a direct-to-home TV connection. The people who came to do the job did so promptly and politely and, unbelievably, were genuinely surprised to be offered a tip for coffee. Yet, they had no clue as to how to activate the system, nor did they know of the scratch cards that had been delivered along with the invoice, which one used to call the toll-free number to get the accounts straightened out. The number led to the inevitable disembodied voice which guided one through the steps in Tamil, while the customer care person answered in the pidgin English that now passes for all commercial language.

Even after a good deal of chat back and forth it was apparent that the troubles were not over. There was an icon of an envelope that kept popping up, which led to an account balance statement that was not updated - and remained so for weeks, despite further phone calls. After meaninglessly repeating some irrelevant facts, the voice at the other end finally put it down to "we are having some technical problem, Sir" — an all-embracing phrase which was, in essence, the reason I had rung in the first place.

A similar level of ignorance of the basics of the working of the system is obvious in dealing with almost any mechanical or electronic device. The car comes back from servicing with the CD player out of order and the garage people swear blind that they did not touch it and know nothing about it. The World Space radio has an obscure method of keying in the channel numbers and a password number of record length which one must key in periodically to renew the account. The telephone linesman who shuffles in chewing a leisurely mouthful of paan, to set up the broadband connection, is the champion of them all. Obviously trained in the days of the old-fashioned phone system, there has obviously been no attempt to re-train him. When asked about the configuration, he simply thrusts a dog-eared sheet of paper under your nose — "I don't know that much English, Sir!" The one who does know something about it is sitting in the telephone exchange office and is unused to the idea that the Internet does not work the way the regular government office does - and it is meant to be a round-the-clock service, like electricity! We are, therefore, told casually that we can call on Monday preferably after 10.30 in the morning, when the "concerned person" is likely to be (in government parlance) in his seat.

Examples such as this can be multiplied. The point to make is a simple one but has far-reaching consequences. The new economy has brought us face to face with so much of advanced technology, often ahead of the rest of the world, leapfrogging several stages because we are lucky to be latecomers on the scene - and one unintended consequence of this, utterly ignored or paid insufficient attention, is the need to bring the rest of society up to speed. All systems and devices (from the Internet to the motor car to the mobile phone) can work only as well as the knowledge levels of the people who install and run or maintain them.

Of course, it would be great if we had completely maintenance-free implements. Despite considerable advancements in manufacturing, total reliability and accuracy will remain a Utopian dream. At any rate, the usage conditions and the knowledge level of the users too are far from ideal. In this combination of half-baked service and semi-skilled users, the ignorance economy is floundering - and none the wiser for it, apparently.

(S. Ramachander is a former director of the Institute of Financial and Management Research, Chennai, and now a management consultant.)

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