Art of Drafting Letters

 

G.C.Pati started preparing the ground, and brought changes in tax administration for smooth transition to VAT. The Empowered Committee had decided to go for VAT in 2003. The government had not notified the VAT cell, but the commissioner posted me to the Cell. I was doing VAT related work. The commissioner instructed me to draft proposals or letters to the government. I did as instructed.

Everybody had his own style of writing. G.C.Pati wanted the proposals, circulars or letters should be brief, preferably within one or two pages, but it should contain all the points he desired. He believed people did not have the patience or much time to read lengthy discourse in a letter. He used to entrust me with a few drafting. I drafted, and with his corrections, those were sent to government or issued for the department officers.

G. Mohan Kumar succeeded G.C.Pati. He saw one letter drafted by me and remarked, “Is this the way the proposals drafted to send to government?”

I asked, “Sir, how should it be written?”

He explained, “First, you write the present provision. Second, you describe the shortcomings or pitfalls of the provision. Third, you give your suggestion or proposal. Fourth, you mention how our proposal addresses the shortcomings. The sentences should be simple and direct; and writing should be lucid and logical.”

I tried to write as he told.  If the draft was good and it satisfied him, he noted on the file ‘good drafting’ or sometimes, ‘very good drafting’. I often got his encomiums.

Dr. Taradatt saw my draft and said, “Are you writing essay? Write in the first paragraph what we want. Who has the patience to read an essay?”

So I had to write as he desired. He often took copies of the letters by hand and got the things done in the government or finance department.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey had his style. By the time he became the commissioner, computers had completely replaced the typewriters. Pandey insisted on the notifications not only be drafted well, it should look well also. He looked into the fonts and size of fonts also; font size should be twelve and heading should be in fourteen, the matter should have well margin, heading and sub heading written in bold. The letters should be in Ariel, later he changed to Times New Roman. The language, of course, should be lucid.

All the commissioners made changes or corrections in the draft. It’s obvious, most of the times, the proposals were theirs. The bloke who originally drafted might have mistakes, which was natural, and the senior did detect, and correct, like an editor editing an article or a book. But there were a few, who made changes whether it was required or not; they thought they should make some changes, just because they were the boss. They did not touch the subject matter, but only the language.

 Once, one commissioner made some changes; substituted words in some places, changed a few sentences. He went on a tour; the letter could not be issued. Giving effect to the corrections he did, the final corrected letter was put up before him for approval, after he returned from his tour almost a week later. He saw the letter, again made changes in the draft and said, “Sahadev Babu, improve your English standard.”

He had forgotten it was the draft he had corrected and redrafted a week back. Of course, I did not remind him of the fact.

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An excerpt from the book Anichhuk Prasasak (A Reluctant Bureaucrat)