Civic Buck Passing

Two newspaper stories attracted the attention of someone. One was about the civic body planning to give free sanitary napkins to school girls. The other was about the civic body putting up creche facilities in civic hospitals. He must have thought the decisions were not appropriate. So he wrote to the governor and sent a copy of the letter to the president of the country. He advised that napkins should not be distributed to school girls because the area surrounding schools was already dirty and if the girls threw used napkins around, it would become dirtier. Instead clean bathrooms and toilets should be provided in schools. The other suggestion was that creches run by needy women should be registered and encouraged rather than building creches in the civic hospitals. That would help those women, and get revenue for the civic body too.
Passing the buck began when the letter reached the primary addressee.

1. A secretary sent it to the civic body chief for further necessary action (fna).
2. The secretary in that office sent it to the boss of bosses of the civic hospitals, and also one to the education officer for fna..
3. Further progress of the letter from the office of the education officer is not known at present. From the boss of the bosses, it was sent to the bosses of civic hospitals for fna..
4. Further progress in the other civic hospitals is not known at present. From the office of the boss of one civic hospital known to us, the letter was sent to the deputy administrative boss for fna.
5. The  deputy administrative boss sent to head of obstetrics gynecology for fna.

The head of obstetrics gynecology was flummoxed. He had no idea how to build good toilets and bathrooms in schools, nor how to register creches in the city and get revenue from them. He thought he could do one of the following.

1. Send it to his Associate Professor for fna, who would then send it to the Assistant Professor, and the letter could then get forwarded successively to the Registrar, House Officer, and finally the Intern for fna. The intern would then stall the issue until his/her posting of 4 weeks got over, and go away without trace.
2. Send a copy to the city civil engineer for building the toilets and bathrooms, and another to civic body chief for registering the existing creches. The former would throw it in a black hole, while the latter would not take it too kindly that the letter sent out by him/her reached him/her again.
3. Send the letter back to deputy administrative boss asking how the obstetrics gynecology department of the hospital could build toilets and bathrooms in schools, and register existing creches and collect revenue from them.

The third option was exercised. The further course of the letter is not known at present. I will not be surprised if it ends up in a black hole nor if a meeting of heads of departments of obstetrics and gynecology in civic hospitals is convened by the administration to plan the action to be taken.