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Ethical Issue at A State Electricity Board Office

Mr. Prasad is the Chief Engineer of the State Electricity Board who is known for being lenient with employees. When Mr. Kumar joined as a young engineer, he was disturbed by employees breaking rules without consequence. One day while traveling, Mr. Kumar noticed a truck driver picking up passengers for money. Mr. Prasad told the driver not to stop, explaining that the driver's low salary requires this side work to support his family. Though Mr. Kumar understands, he believes leniency could lead to greater issues and questions if there are alternative ways to help within the rules.

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Ashu Manu
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49 views

Ethical Issue at A State Electricity Board Office

Mr. Prasad is the Chief Engineer of the State Electricity Board who is known for being lenient with employees. When Mr. Kumar joined as a young engineer, he was disturbed by employees breaking rules without consequence. One day while traveling, Mr. Kumar noticed a truck driver picking up passengers for money. Mr. Prasad told the driver not to stop, explaining that the driver's low salary requires this side work to support his family. Though Mr. Kumar understands, he believes leniency could lead to greater issues and questions if there are alternative ways to help within the rules.

Uploaded by

Ashu Manu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ethical Issue at a State Electricity Board office:

Mr. I. K. Prasad is the Chief Engineer of the State Electricity Board, and Mr. Prasad has a reputation of
being ‘soft’ on his employees, due to which, it was rumoured, many of his employees do not exactly
stick to the rules and regulations of the organization. When Mr. P Kumar joined the Board as an young
engineer, just after his engineering degree, he was appalled to see how many people casually broke the
rules of the Board, and got away with it. Time and again, he had tried to impress upon Mr. Prasad to
take disciplinary action, at least against the workmen and the staff, but to no avail. Mr. Prasad would
just ignore his complaints, saying that he did not yet have enough experience to understand the
implications of these things.

One day Mr. Prasad and Mr. Kumar were travelling together long distance, on some official duty.
Suddenly, Mr. Kumar happened to notice one of their truck drivers stopping at a point on the highway
and taking up people into the truck, who were waiting near the roadside.

“That’s Balwant, Sir”, cried Mr. Kumar, “he’s picking up passengers from the roadside in his truck, and
taking money from them.”

Mr. Prasad too turned around and spotted Balwant doing exactly what Mr. Kumar had noticed. Just at
the same time, Balwant too turned around and spotted his Board’s car with ‘Chief Engineer’ written in
the car plates. But because of the white curtains in the car, he could not be sure whether the occupants
in the car had noticed him or not.

“Stop the car immediately, driver,” shouted Mr. Kumar, “I say, stop immediately; we have to catch him
red-handed.”

“No, keep going,” said Mr. Prasad urgently to the driver, “Pretend not to have seen him.”

“But, Sir – Why? We had a good chance to catch him red handed. We have known it since a long time
that Balwant uses his truck to make a little money on the side,” exclaimed Mr. Kumar, as their car sped
away.

“Calm down Kumar, calm down,” replied Mr. Prasad patting Kumar’s knee. “I too know that whenever
Balwant has to transport goods long distance, he uses the return trip to pick up passengers from the
roadside. I also know that you see it as going against the rules. I know it is against the rules. But think
analytically. How much salary does Balwant get from the Board? Even after 10-12 years of service, his
services have not yet been confirmed. He earns around Rs.2,600/- per month. He has two children apart
from his aged parents who live with him. Can anyone today support a six-member family on less than
Rs.3,000/- per month? It is not out of choice that Balwant, or anyone else for that matter, breaks rules.
Would you or I not have been tempted to do just what Balwant had done, had we been in his place? And
how much do you think he earns from these passengers? 100 rupees? As you have seen, these
passengers are all daily-wage labourers or poor people, too poor to even pay the bus fare, and waits for
someone like Balwant to give them a ride for a pittance. Moreover, what harm is Balwant really causing
to the Board? The truck would have anyway come empty in its return trip. It is not that Balwant is
causing some additional expenses to the Board by his action. Just now you wanted to stop the car. Had I
stopped the car to catch him or had even given an indication that I had seen him, I would have had to
take action against him. I would have been compelled to at least call him to my office tomorrow and
warned him not to repeat what he has done today, or even give him a notice asking him for a written
explanation. Then he would have had to stop what he has been doing or I would have had to take
stronger action like terminating his services or suspending him. Now, he feels safe that no one has seen
him. You know Kumar, you have to be humane when dealing with people. People like Balwant has not
received much from our society, nor from the Board where he has been working for so many years.
Management must be founded not only values like honesty and truth and righteousness, but also on
qualities like tolerance, sympathy and compassion. People like Balwant need a little bit of empathy and
compassion from people like us to stay alive in this world. Now I think you will understand why I did not
allow you to stop the car.”

“But, still Sir,” said Mr. Kumar firmly, “though I appreciate and understand your point of view, I cannot
completely accept this philosophy. Don’t you think Sir, that this kind of leniency on our part will lead to
indiscipline and chaos in the organization? Balwant’s case may be genuine Sir, but tomorrow someone
else may take advantage of your kind nature and cheat the Board. Instead of letting Balwant break the
rules of the Board, isn’t there any other way in which we can help him? After all, Sir, it is unethical to
break rules.”

QUESTIONS:
1. Do you believe Mr. Prasad, the Chief Engineer, is correct in his belief?
2. What kind of value system is Mr. Prasad trying to build in his Board?
3. Do you feel that Mr. Kumar is more ethical of the two? Would the ethical culture of the
organization improve when someone like Mr. Kumar becomes the Chief Engineer?
4. What sort of ethical behavior do you think the employees of this organization are encouraged to
display?
5. Do you think, it is really unethical to break rules?
6. What would you have done had you been in Mr. Prasad’s place? In Mr. Kumar’s place?

Assignment2:
1. Analyze the above case study.
2. Describe the ethical issues involved in the case study.
3. Explain your solutions to the above ethical issues mentioned in (2) above.

Submit the handwritten assignment in PDF file only by email to email ID:
businessethics.imsr@gmail.com (like you submitted earlier assignment no. 1) by Saturday 12 th Dec.
2020 PM.

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