A Disaster called Development.

All it took was 7mm of rain to drown bangalore in misery.The media has once again made the right noises about poor infrastructure, poor administration and lack of accountability in the city corporation. To look at Bangalore only as city with poor infrastructure and administration would be a mistake.Remember , not long ago Bangalore was the darling of the upper middle class working professionals-the climate , job opportunities , cosmopolitan crowd et all.Where does it stand now? a decaying city crumbling under the weight of it's achivements with a steadily increasing crime graph. From being a role model for development, it has degraded into an example of all things that can go wrong with a growing metropolis.

The objective here is not to deride the city but look at the bigger picture. The degradation of bangalore is only a symptom of a disease which has been spreading through out the country with our tacit help. A glance at other cities will confirm that they are already there with bangalore or speeding their way to match it's urban mess. So is it just a question of managing urban growth? No it's a question of our one-dimensional view of development.

What is our definition of development? Of developed cities and states? We typically view development as huge IT parks with their fancy glass buildings, huge dams, huge power plants and basically anything that will allow the govt to announce in newspaper proudly "Rs 2500 Cr allocated for city development". Plans like these typically swell the city's problems along with the politician's ego. My argument is not against big ticket projects, Yes , we do need spend a lot on developing our country's infrastructure, but the kind of obsession shown by both central and state governments for mega-sized projects without taking a long term view is hurting the country badly.( this is irresspective of the party in power).The political and administrative class of the country along with it's citizens approach the issue of development like hollywood producers- hype and excitement are more important than content. No wonder we end up producing 'Godzilas' that destroy people's life.

What is the problem with this view of development? Most of the development plans do not include the people who will be affected by it into consideration. It's almost as if they never existed. Coming back to the Bangalore example (this is true for other cities also), the development of city as IT hub has resulted in an uneasy divide. On one hand we have the mobile-flashing yuppie crowd which is not too averse to show off it's wealth. On the other we have migrants from various parts of the state who do not have proper job opportunities, the resulting frustration drives then to crimes.

Typically all big ticket projects require land to be acquired from locals.Invariably agricultural lands are acquired from locals.The farmers usually don't have much of chance against such land acquisition, either their financial condition is too poor to deny such an offer or they are any way forced to part with their lands for the cash compensation offered.When politicians are involved , then accusations of land grabbing and scam cannot be too far away.People who are displaced like this initially manage with the cash compensation received, with the absence of proper investment opportunities for the cash they have received , they have soon get back to finding a job and are driven to cities and so we have this urban mess.

It is not that politicians and Government officials are not aware of these facts.The reason why there is bias towards huge projects is the huge kickbacks that politicians and officials receive.

We have to get rid of our assumption that jobs in the "knowledge sector" (IT,BFSI) are the panacea for job growth.Inspite of the economy growing at a steady phase over the past 2-3 years there has been negligible job growth.Modernization has resulted in loss of jobs in manufacturing sector and the IT,ITES growth is not big enough to absorb the employment requirements of the economy.Moreover in a country where access to quality education is limited , it is impractical to expect that growth in IT industry will reach all sections of the society.

We need to pay attention to the fact that any project that does not address employment of people affected by it will definitely end up being a disisater.The government has to pay attention to vocational training and provide a mechanism to make employability achiveable by everyone.Of course there are no easy solutions, promoting small scale industries is probably one of the ways of achieving this goal.Government and private sector needs to strike a balance between mordernizing manufacturing facilities and promoting labor intensive jobs.

There are a few worthy models of inclusive development within our country which need to emulated. The shining example is of Tate steel at Jamshedpur.Jamshedpur is a modern, compact industrial city developed by Tata Steel.Life in the city is comfortable, with all areas having 24 hours running water and electricity. Facilities are maintained by Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company Limited(JUSCO), a 100% owned subsidiary of Tata Steel.I would need to start another blog to list their various corporate initiatives, but I’ll provide you with a glimpse of their enormous impact on lives of people.Forty-eight tribal girls are being educated through a residential program over nine months. They are being taught Bengali(their local dialect is sainthali).One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery competition. They have their own women’s football team and whats more they are now fond of education. It is a passion and not a burden. Tata Industries is one of the 30 international companies to submit 'triple bottom line' accounting, measuring not just their financial results but also their social and environmental practice, to the United Nations Global Reporting Initiative.

I am not a PRO of Tatas, but this is an exmple of what comapnies can do if they want to.Instead of perinially complaining about poor government, lack of infrastructure etc., Tata's have gone ahead and done something about it.This is what corporate India and Government of India need to emulate. There are other hundreds of individual initiatives which are being lost in the government's obsession with size.Even now the governments across the country are discussing about river-linking project, an expensive proposal which will end up being an ecological nightmare,huge dams , huge power plants.

We need to shift our focus to local initaiatives and innovative ideas to really become a developed nation.Two such examples that I recently came across were production of petrol from palstic(by prof.ALKA Zadgaonkar of Nagpur’s G.H. Raisoni College of Engineering) and One Mr chandrashekar who has built a power plant exclusivesly for his village.(sorry for the sketchy details , will update as soon as i get more details)