1. Accommodation is one of the basic needs of any human being. Everyone wants to remain in a comfortable and secure environment. As a proud member of military society, all the army person are encouraged to live in a cantonment with their family member. As this is a restricted place for common people, that’s why it is not always possible to arrange all types of facilities from the civil outside area. So, the various utility services of cantonment require due consideration for ensuring smooth stay of its members.
With the growing military society, the demands and scarcity of utility resources are also increasing in high rate. In Bangladesh, all the responsibility for new infrastructure construction, maintenance and repair works inside the cantonments is fully done by the Military Engineer Service (MES). They ensure supply of electricity, water and gas in the barracks, offices, houses and other installations of the cantonment. MES is an organization to provide engineer services to Bangladesh Army and other sister services.
It is a service oriented government organization to provide its service supports to all sorts of military installations.
2. The performance of MES is widely discussed issue in the cantonments. The service provided by MES has become a growing concern. Frequently, the users feel that there are many scopes to improve the standard of their service. They complain about their slow response, inefficient service, shortage of manpower and resources etcetera. Bangladesh Army needs to allocate a major portion of the budget for the maintenance. Despite of spending such amount of money, the users are not often satisfied with the service provided.
Sometimes, it was proposed to outsource those facilities like some other country. Many armies are getting good dividend by outsourcing their MES affairs. So, it is the right time to ponder on this issue.
3. Outsourcing is a new concept throughout the world. Outsourcing of services is the process of contracting out some in-house services to private entities. It can also be defined as the delegation of the operation and day-to-day management to an external service provider. Military outsourcing is the process of contracting out those tasks to private entities that were earlier performed by our organization. Due to the decline trends of MES user satisfaction outsourcing can be one of the viable options to improve the present status. This research paper would make a fair endeavor to bring out information like economic implication of outsourcing, impact of outsourcing on overall improvement of the service and improvement of user satisfaction in MES affairs.
4. List of Literatures Consulted. No research has been carried out in Bangladesh Army to evaluate the feasibility of outsourcing of MES affairs. However, few researches have been carried out on outsourcing of different non-staple services of Combined Military Hospital, outsourcing in Bangladesh Navy, outsourcing in Defence Services Command and Staff College, from some idea regarding the pros and cons of outsourcing term is derived. In order to get a clear picture in MES affairs, few books and publications have been consulted. Basically, they cover the rules, regulations and charter of duties for MES issue. An Army Headquarters Project Study in the year 2010 on ‘Expectations and Realities of MES Support in Bangladesh Army’ was conducted to get an idea about present state. . Besides those few other books, study paper, Individual Research Papers considered for the purpose of this research. The list of reviewed literatures is at Bibliography; the summaries of findings are discussed in subsequent paragraphs.
5. Findings from Reviewed Literatures. Since all the literatures are not directly interconnected to the topic of the research, ample of idea could not be deduced from there. Anyway, few of the significant findings for the research are outlined below:
a. The publications for MES by Army Head Quarter, E in C Branch, Works Directorate have encompassed their history, charter of duties, rules & regulations, schedule of rates and guiding rules for execution of MES works. MES Regulations-1964 (1978) is a compilation of rules that MES has inherited from Pakistan period. It discusses about their administrative, financial and work implementation aspect. Compendium of MES Routine Instructions (2008) is an updated accumulation involving administrative and technical matters.
b. Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) covenants with the all type of construction work, its specification, safety, quality, comfort, environmental aspects etc. Any construction in Bangladesh is bound to regulate by this code. The code is of international standard & periodically revised.
c. The Army Head Quarters Study Paper (2010) on ” Expectation and Realities of MES Support in Bangladesh Army” briefly sketches the organizational structure, rules, regulations and commitments of MES, State of MES performance and level of users’ satisfaction.
d. Major Moshiur in his research paper “A cost -benefit analysis of outsourcing different non-core services at combined military hospital” stated that outsourcing selected non-essential services at CMH would reduce the fiscal expenses. This study identified possible regions of CMH that can be outsourced.
e. Lieutenant Commander Z M Sarwat Hossain in his research paper “Outsourcing in Bangladesh Navy-feasibility and prognosis” stated that initially outsourcing can be started with limited scale to gain experience.
f. Major Md Khalid Saifullah in his research paper “Outsourcing in Defence Services Command and Staff College- a cost benefit analysis” mentioned that the incorporation of outsourcing process in a few certain sectors of DSCSC will decrease the expenditure.
g. Major Masum, in his paper studied the performance of MES. He recognized some shortage of MES due to insufficient training of employee, financial constraint, and management system which ultimately affect user satisfaction. To address the issue, he opined for comprehensive design to boost users satisfaction.(Masum,2012)
h. Major Saaif has conducted a research on how best MES can provide service to the users by developing existing human resources. He highlights that the existing casual employee can be merged with permanent staff to resolve the issue. He also suggested that, by developing skilled manpower, effective training may enhance the user satisfaction. (Saaif,2014)
j. Major Zia, in his paper, stated that present complaint management systems of MES needs to be upgraded to increase the user satisfaction. Timeworn TO&E, shortage of equipment and manpower are the leading cause of ensuring quality service. For above stated reason complaint management system is not operative properly. He suggested to incorporate automated management system may enrich quality maintenance services (Zia,2016)
6. Comments. After consulting all the research papers stated above, it was found that maximum research were intended at finding various problems, reformation of TO&E, increasing budget and training of the MES personal. In case of research on outsourcing, only various training institutions, CMH and logistics management system was considered. None of the researcher has thought of outsourcing the MES affairs for the better user satisfaction.
7. Scopes of Further Research. Basing on the literatures reviewed, it is felt that there are sufficient scopes for research on the subject to cover the following details:
a. State of MES performance and level of users’ satisfaction.
b. Outsourcing of MES affairs to enhance the satisfaction level.
c. Approaches to improve the performance of MES.
d. Means to elevate users’ satisfaction in regards to MES support.
8. Area Chosen for Research. Considering the areas open for further research, the researcher finds that Outsourcing can be one of the best possible way to increase the user satisfaction. Since outsourcing is a new idea and this has got better possibility to improve the present condition. Bangladesh Army has adopted outsourcing in some occasions and got better dividend. Therefore, outsourcing of MES affairs – prospects, challenges and ways forward is chosen for this research.
9. The research is operationalized as shown in Figure 1
10. Limitations. In recent days it found that, outsourcing is a new scope for many important event. Many of the militaries are acquiring benefit from outsourcing. In Bangladesh Army, the outsourcing is already introduced for national level important events, various social gathering. In pursuit of reference materials, the researcher found out very less documents. The researcher of this paper acknowledges certain set of limitations as mentioned below:
a. Though MES is responsible for all the three services, but here this study was narrowed down to MES affairs for Bangladesh Army only.
b. The first exposure of the researcher in the sphere of outsourcing might have obstructed the degree of insight and precision expected out of the research.
11. Assumptions. Few assumptions have been considered to bridge the gaps where specific realistic information is missing or where it has been essential to make assumptions in order data analysis. However, an earnest effort have been made to avoid making any major assumption that has considerable influence in data analysis and decision making for the study. In all cases, the author has made an endeavour to scrutinize the assumptions made with available information. The areas where certain assumptions have been made are as follows:
a. In this research only the complaint management system, maintenance work and response time of MES are kept in the scope of the research.
b. Field survey was done mostly on officers, JCOs, ORs, logistic staffs of different units/ formations and GEs, SDOs, technical personnel of Dhaka, Mirpur and Savar Cantonment. Similar picture from all the formations/ areas of Bangladesh Army could not be ensured.
c. All staffs have expressed their opinion and understanding the background of the study, the requirements of projecting impartial stand, and maintaining ethical neutrality.
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