Craving for quality

Having ungrudgingly neglected according importance and attention to quality of life, we find ourselves pre-occupied with concerns of quality applied to material matters namely a) consumer durables, b) electronic gadgets including mobile phones, c) dresses, d) food products as well as raw materials including perishables consumed daily, e) possessions such as two-wheelers as well as other automobiles and so on at a personal level, apart from services expected from functionaries in government and manufacturers of goods offered in the market, both of which have left much to be desired. As far as the quality of roads, constructed at enormously inflated costs using public funds, public buildings constructed by contractors who enjoy favoured status from the top brass in the government of the day, equipment and even medicines supplied to government departments under the lowest tender principle, less said the better. People have shown admirable tolerance and even acceptance of quality in its unlimited meaning as it has vanished into thin air.

The years following the two world wars witnessed hectic activity of rebuilding economy to restore normal life with the western countries taking lead. The concept of quality control of manufactured products took birth leading to the now-familiar-to-all field of Statistical  Quality Control (SQC). One is prompted to hasten in remarking that quality of life is outside the purview of SQC.

Wailing about deterioration of both quality of life and that of all the aforementioned material matters is an unrewarding exercise. The extent of wantonly hurting quality befuddling people at large cannot answer the question ‘why so?’ Maybe, a part answer can be found in the avaricious human nature to amass wealth by hook or cook. The name of the game is : Grease the palm of the bureaucrats, grab tenders of public funded projects, inflate the cost estimates to astronomical proportions, expedite work with substandard materials and share the booty among all the stock-holders, not to forget the lion’s share for the elected representatives adorning high posts in the government.

Quick fix solutions are being offered by public speakers of all hues to improve the quality of education, a term as hazy as the proverbial ghost. The nadir reached in the quality of water, air and land, clearly a making of the land’s people themselves, is more talked about than acted upon to arrest the decline, barring the efforts of some active and committed NGOs like MGP.