The various types of systems losses in the public services we read about in the local press is a sign of the malaise in the society (governance-good, or mediocre). One cynic was very cryptic in his approach: poor political maintenance!

"Preventive Maintenance" is a formal and specialized area of training and practice, applicable in any application, but it is enforced for maintaining the essential services, to minimize the period of breakdowns or interruptions (public utilities, medical, military, emergency situations, and many other areas). Without training and practice, its efficacy is low. Cannot depend on common sense-there are many gaps, in approach, and technical standard practices. More specialized is high-tech maintenance schedules in critical applications. This is an additional burden in the third world, as there is never time to catch up, as technologies advance faster and faster.

For example, in the broadcasting service (now include the digital and computer applications and the satellite services), the average life of critical components is kept handy for reference by the maintenance technical staff, so that a component nearing its average life is replaced in time, before failure, to reduce on-air interruptions (in sharp contrast to replace on failure'). An owner of a car has to maintain it properly, as his life (and others'). It depends on driving the vehicle (imagine a brake failure, a tire burst, or snapping of a (steering) tie-rod. Many homes have emergency lighting arrangement for short periods. The layman's query is: why our public maintenance services are so poor, and getting poorer?

In an underdeveloped country, maintenance of imported systems and equipment could be a big headache, due to several logistic factors, such as shortage of foreign exchange and maintenance budget, bureaucratic hassles and long paper-work (chain of command), and the time taken for importing spares (in an industrialised country, the local spare is available with just a telephone call). Also, training lags behind technology, as newer equipment is marketed all the time. After some time, old equipment have to be discarded, as spares are difficult to procure, (importing used cars is the previous stage). Notice how many old equipment and systems are still running in our public utility services. Several types of budgets come into the picture: capital, operational, maintenance, and training. Remember our per capita operational, maintenance and training. Remember our per capita income is slightly above USD 400.

Watching the local scene, it is apparent that, not to speak of preventive maintenance, even the scheduled basic maintenance is not performed efficiently, due to various factors, which are known to the operators and the controlling authorities. Here one silent background factor creeps in: the quality of the human resources (technical staff or team) manning a service (viz. the clients may suffer due to dishonest practices).

In field operations (at the site of a public project) there may be many gaps, as the finished job may not tally with the specs noted in the document. Even an honest job may differ in maintaining the tolerance factor, (a road or embankment, new or under repair).

Inspection is part of any system. Poor inspection is costly, in the long run; as is poor maintenance (a stitch in time saves nine). If the inspectors do not inspect properly, the nation has to pay for it through the nose. The regulations may be there in the books, but its implementation depends on social norms, followed or disregarded.

Here, the quality of internal leadership comes in, whether it is at the general or technical level. The importance of proper Monitoring is a part of the technical game. Operation, maintenance, inspection, monitoring and regulatory roles are all integrated in public service.

We employ all the tricks of the trade, but still they are not good enough.

Why? Let's blame others!