Ugly journey to reach the beautiful

How many hours should it take to travel 250 km under Indian road conditions. @50 km/hr may be 5 hrs that too on what we call NH-2 (National Highway-2).

It ultimately took 7.5 hrs to reach Agra and a lesson in the challenges that the country is facing because of rapid Urbanization, Huge Population, Poor urban and Infrastructure planning and Lawlessness. I am back to Agra after a decade and this is my experience.

You get out of Delhi to get into a series of villages that are totally chaotic and one wonders if the villages have expanded to occupy the Highways. Rapid industrialization and real estate boom in the NCR region has brought in lot of employment seeking population to Delhi and its Suburbs.

What is visible is that agriculture is vanishing along the highways and farmers are getting out of the vocation selling lands to land mafias. All sorts of Small industries, Eateries, Engineering and Management colleges are cropping up along the highways. Delhi doesn’t end up to 100 km from its outskirts. The sea of humanity getting out on to the roads is intimidating even for an Indian.

At the heart of the matter is lack of urban planning, zoning and regulation. I would say no state in the country is good at it but in the NCR region it is acute. DDA and the other agencies must be throwing all rules to the winds in approving projects around the NCR region.

If the travel from Delhi to Agra through Faridabad, Ballabgarh, Palwal and Mathura is a nightmare in itself, travel within Agra to reach the elusive Taj is even nightmarish. Any other country having this fabulous monument would have gone to lengths to ensure the town is developed as a world class tourist city and attracted more tourists. Agra is like any other North Indian city, there is nothing like city administration it runs by default.

Since being declared a UN Heritage site in 1983 the situation is better for the Taj and its surroundings but much more needs to be done (they still allow plastic into the Taj campus and one can see plastic bottles lying around in the mausoleum itself – very bad). A beautiful Taj and an ugly Agra town stand in contrast. Shahjahan would be surprised to see the lack of town planning which he envisioned 350 years ago.

The Yamuna Expressway may ease things in terms of travel to Agra but the larger question of urban and town planning practices across the country remains. In the name of development we should not end up with ugly structures as eye sores around the country.

Town and urban planning departments are amongst the most corrupt in the country, they need to be fixed.

Is it the last stand

Will the path breaking (or back breaking for our politicians) Jan Lok pall bill be the beginning of the end of corruption in the country? The mood of the civil society is one of hope and in Anna they found a man who could push the government on the back foot. Squeaky clean, short in physical built and a Gandhian to the core there could not have been better person to lead the agitation. It is a genuine victory for the civil society and one could see the UPA government trembling on the potential damage this agitation could cause to its already tarnished reputation. For the government there could not have been a worst moment with the Supreme Court breathing down its neck on the 2G and the CWG scams it had no way out than to accept the demands of the agitators.

The congress spokesperson tried to talk down Anna and his team on the question of constitutional propriety of forming a joint committee with a co-chairman from civil society, there were no buyers to this line of argument, government has shown alacrity in agreeing to the demands and moving on with the deliberations.

It needs to be seen if the deliberations of the joint committee, subsequent approval of the cabinet and formalizing of the bill in the parliament will happen. There is long way to go and the terms of the bill could be diluted and the process could derail at any time.

However is the civil society ready to face a corruption less system, are we not an integral part of the mess. No doubt we hate it, but many of us would have greased palms or given baksheesh to get out of a mess or get work done out of way. A small recommendation for a school admission, job, using “influence” for moving files in a government office etc, we are not used to play by the rules. We need to re-build our society’s value systems with respect to conduct in public life. Playing by the rules should be the norm only then can we really dream of a society devoid of corruption.
The next question is for the Political class and bureaucracy. Are they ready for a corruption less system? Do we have an Institutional frame work to tackle corruption at this level, will the Jan lokpal bill help.

It is a gargantuan task to get rid of the evil of corruption that is tearing the society apart. Politicians pushing their policies, Corporates getting cosy with bureaucrats and politicians for big contracts, rape of natural wealth by some, Judicial corruption, big time corruption in PWD and water works projects across the country, daily life small time corruption by constables, RTO, CTO etc. There is no end and we are all in it.

Has the time come for India to come out clean; is the defiance of the civil society the last stand? Let’s wait and watch.

Waiting for the Leaders

India has been waiting for the younger generation of political leaders to take over the mantle from the seniors and lead from the front, the wait is getting longer. The number of young legislators is progressively increasing along with a good mix of diversity but what we are seeing is deafening silence from the young legislators on issues of national importance. None of them have spoken anything significant either on matters of policy, current political situation, current national issues.

It was expected that the younger leaders would be progressive, will be above party lines on crucial issues, be vocal and would stand against the debilitating ailments affecting our society (corruption, under- development etc). Alas it seems we have expected too much. We have ended up with a bunch that is playing shadows to their seniors.

The person who has the pole position Rahul Gandhi himself is delivering sweet nothings for years now. Except for his pitch on the state of women like Kalavati during the nuclear debate his performance in and out outside parliament has been pedestrian. With such an influence he could have driven the national debate on many issues. Unfortunately his views on corruption, ongoing scams, Kashmir etc are not clear. He has a definite shot at the premier ship of the country and hence has to shed his shyness and speak up. The country is waiting for him to come of age.

Omar Abdullah has almost been a disaster but looks like he has pulled back, but again he has done nothing special or think differently to solve the Kashmir imbroglio. One expected he talks more about development, employment, diplomacy etc, he is getting caught in the political wrangling that is consuming his attention. He needs to lead from the front and by example to get the Kashmirie’s on his side. Need new ideas from you Omar, the nation is waiting for a leader to decisively move the Kashmir issue to India’s favor.

Not seen much from the rest of the younger lot on any path breaking policy or other initiatives Sachin Pilot, Jyothiraditya, Agatha Sangma, and Jitin Prasada etc.
The wait for young India to take over is getting longer.

Rail Tamasha

Rail budget every year is a tamasha of sorts, the intent of the budget seems to be to impress the middle and lower class voters with favorable announcements (I have not included the upper class since they do not care much for Rail travel). The entire budget exercise is more a rhetoric flourish than actual intent to improve the Rail services in the country.

Rail Ministers take the budget exercise as an opportunity to announce more trains since they make good headlines. The already beaten down infrastructure doesn’t matter, some of these new trains are obviously accommodated due to political pressure and do not live to see the day due to economics ( It will be interesting to see the data on how many new trains announced over the past 5 years have been cancelled due to economics)

I need to acknowledge the schedule adherence has improved but the overall experience of travelling on the Indian Railways is nowhere close to what we can call a decent service. 25 million citizens use the service on a daily basis. Leaving china this should be much more volume of Rail travel than any other continent.

For this scale the opportunity to expand and improve all round Infrastructure is tremendous. This will happen when the Railways shift their thinking from running train and good services purely from revenue earning perspective and put the passenger in the scheme of things.

I am not sure if we yet have a role model Railway station in the country, the one which has easy accessibility to all platforms, tracks without fecal discharges, general cleanliness and orderliness. First things first Railways need to get the technology of collecting and safe discharge of human waste in the trains and stations, it is the ugliest site and a sad story about lack of thinking from Indian Railways from a public health view point (there are reports attempts have been made but discarded due to high cost, it means nothing since public health is more important than cost to Railways).

Investments in track infrastructure for high speed trains, signaling and other safety measures and modern stations should be the priority for Indian Railways. They should not forget that the Airports in the country which used to be grazing fields have slowly transformed themselves into world class facilities, the railways need to get private players into the act. While doing this they should not forget the poor porter, can we get the poor guy equipment to take goods around. Railways we are in the 21st century wake up.

Adding more and more trains to the already ageing infrastructure will only add more problems to commuters in terms of slow speeds and later running of trains, safety issues, fuel inefficiency and man-hour losses, handling of trains in outer etc. Our representatives and officials ought to draft their necessities and prioritize the list in the best interests of the citizens and the country.

Municipal decadence

I am writing this since I observed women in the early to late mornings sweeping roads in the Hyderabad city, municipal officers who have devised this employment generation scheme did not think for a moment the risk they are putting the women to. With poor street lights and rash driving they are often subject to accidents. For 3000 rs a month they are subject to dust pollution, high risk working conditions etc. Do we need to clean our roads at all most of them are broken anyways. Mal-administration, lack of innovation and poor execution ails our municipalities.

Municipal administration in the Indian towns and cities is a broken function. An important civil administration function neglected by the state and central governments. Indian towns and cities are a visual load of dirt and broken infrastructure.

I need not detail the deplorable hygienic conditions that exist of Indian towns and cities. The municipality’s in the country work in bits and pieces. It is amazing to see the consistency in municipal mal-administration across the length and breadth of the country (leave aside some towns here and there).

Indian towns and cities are densely populated and unplanned and that adds to the complexity of administering them. Having said that there is no serious attempt by the state and central governments to address the issues that plague city and town administrations in the country. We are not learning from other successful cities in the world.

We often attribute mediocrity in this country to the large population, complexity etc, more of an excuse to continue the status quo. Municipalities’ too claim the same and do not re-invent themselves.

It is time to turn our attention to our cities and towns which are growing bigger due to influx from villages, our cities will be unmanageable in a decade with the current structures. May be we need to have a relook at the governance model, are the elected municipal councils able to deliver or they have become obstructionist, do we need to privatize some or more of the city functions, do we need professionals to run our cities ?

Our own Tahrir Squares

The turmoil in Egypt is a lesson for dictatorships and autocracies in the Arab world, their moments of glory are coming to an end. We should wish the citizens of Egypt good luck in their quest for establishing a democratic polity and a free society.

Is there a lesson for established and vibrant democracies like India whose people are free but their aspirations are yet to be realized. Aspirations which are basic and fundamental to be called a civilized and mature democracy.

The Indian is frustrated with the type of democracy we have created. Frustrated that the powers that be are subverting the democratic institutions for personal gains. All the three branches of governance are compromised with serious issues relating to their integrity. The private enterprise is not to be left out of the equation their role in the current crisis is unmistakable.

There is a former Supreme Court chief justice being accused of
inaction and nepotism. A cabinet minister has made an ass of the entire system selling precious spectrum at whatever price he decided. Another minister and his cohorts ran a national sports body like their personal fiefdom and milked money. There are many bureaucrats being caught with crores of rupees during raids conducted by the CBI. All of us are aware of these instances and I am sure there are hundreds more unearthed cases across the country.

Whilst corruption has been around since long the scale and blatancy of it is worrying. Scam after scam is having a demoralizing effect on the citizens; there is a loss of trust on all three branches of governance. The question is will we ever become a “developed country” with the type of system we have created.

Mechanisms to punish the erring politician, bureaucrat exist but the credibility of the institutions that are required to do that is questionable. How many of us believe that the CBI is truly independent?

It is not easy to change the system but we need to do it, the way we handle the Spectrum, CWG and other high profile corruption cases will determine our intent towards establishing a system that is feared by folks who want to subvert it.

I think India is a cross roads and the government should be seize this opportunity to correct the deviant system, else all of us need to walk to our own “tahrir squares” in our cities, towns and villages to force the issue.

Micro Finance - New begining needed

The story of MFIs in India is turning out be case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Some of the founders of these MFIs have become heroes for their fight to bring in inclusive growth etc. They have been lauded in international media and honored. Their stated objective was to make these organizations community owned. Alas they are turning out be greedy business men in sheep’s clothing. The unraveling of the industry due to farmer’s suicide in Andhra Pradesh seems to spell trouble for at least some of them.

A host of governance related issues are coming out of the cupboards of these organizations. Some of them have used complex structures to rob the poor women shareholders of their wealth. Some of them like SKS started with noble intentions but once the industry picked momentum set aside the beneficiaries’ interests for commercial gains. Overall a weak regulatory regime helped these MFIs to subvert the system. They milked 26% and above interest rates from the poor.

Look at this, the Promoter of Share Micro fin has taken home 7.4 Cr as compensation for Fy10. This is much larger than the compensation of CEO of any commercial bank. This money if from the poor, is it morally right?

There is enough analysis on the failings of the MFIs, having said that it is true that these organizations have reached out to the poor and needy in the hinterlands of the country and provided loans. They filled in the gap that could not be bridged by the public and private sector banks. These organizations were not keen to serve this segment of the population due to the inherent risks of operations. For that they deserve to be acknowledged.

The Malegam committee has come out with some recommendations there is an ongoing debate on the recommendations, one should expect positive outcomes from the debate.

Despite the shortcomings I believe that MFIs under a strict regulatory regime and who operate with the basic intent of community ownership are needed and government should help stabilize the industry.

There is also a need for the MFIs to reinvent themselves and venture out into areas like insurance, loans for health care, crop loans etc. There is enough scope for MFIs to partner with rural India.

I was in my village this week and met a poor lady who came over to my house with a bunch of medical reports, an MRI with medical analysis stating that her boy had seizures and needs to be under medical care for the next 2 years, expense Rs 2500/month. She told me that she has borrowed money for the initial treatment and diagnosis at 40% interest rates from local lenders. This story can be found in many places across the country. Where do these families go for treatment, govt health services are erratic and unreliable. There is an opportunity for MFIs here, they can finance health care, only if they completely understand the needs and abilities of the clientele they are serving. Swanky offices and IPOs mean MFIs in India have lost their way.