Skeleton staff

Skelton Staff

During my early period in BEL, late Shri B Ramachandra Rao was my boss for a long time. Initially I was posted in Audit and he was the Head of Audit Department. I heard that in those days, posting of an employee was influenced by his/her name also, like Kashmirilal in Cash Section, Adithyan in Audit etc.  During those days, there was both pre audit and post audit. Important financial proposals, payments beyond some limits, final payment of contractors’ bill etc were done only after concurrence from Audit. Now a day’s audit is confined to post audit only.  Many auditors will sit on the fence, watch all the wrong doings and will subsequently come out with big audit reports. Some auditors are of opinion that they should at least raise one question, even if the proposal is in order. In one Purchase proposal for purchase of shoes as a part of uniform, one auditor has raised a question “if 8” shoes and 9” shoes are available at the same rates, why should we go for 8” shoes?” There are several definitions for audit but one definition given by a BEL employee is “Audit is a necessary nuisance”.

Shri Ramachandra Rao was having full faith and confidence on me. He unofficially used to seek my opinion on various matters. He used to ask me to examine the draft letters and very often he used to tell his PA “Show to Adithyan”.  During those days there were 4 Sr. Accountants in Audit Department.  Mr. Sablok (It is the name of a person and not all people), Mr. Malhotra, Mr. Unnikrishnan and myself. The former two were 90+ (weight, and not age) and latter two were 60-.  During that period Mr. Malhotra changed from B to C i.e.; he left BEL and joined CEL, another public sector undertaking and Mr. Sablok was ‘temporarily” transferred to Regional Office New Delhi.  (Mr. Sablok retired from Regional Office after serving about 35 years there)  Our workload increased tremendously. If it was only post mortem (post audit) we could have avoided doing something, but pre audit cannot be avoided, and since Audit is the final clearance authority, their responsibility was tremendous.  One day Shri. Rao called me and asked me to go through a draft proposal. The proposal was about posting additional staff to Internal Audit Department. The note went like this “Audit is working with skeleton staff at the supervisory level…..” After some time I went to his cabin. He asked my comments about the proposal. I told him. “Sir, what you have written is hundred percent literally correct. If Sablok and Malhotra were there, perhaps you would not have made such a note”. He could not resist the temptation of laughing.