THE PROBLEM OF PLENTY

India, next to China, is 2nd most populous country in the world. So this is the only thing that we have plenty of people and nothing else. Though many may say that this is our great power, it is above that a really great responsibility and which is really becoming burden.
When I see now in India, population is real problem. You step out of your home and you start feeling this. This population demands a huge infrastructure and resources. It is said that in Mumbai there are so many vehicles that there won’t be enough parking space in city if all the vehicles are parked at the same time and similar or even worse situation might be there in Bangalore, Pune, and Delhi etc. In Pune, millions are being spent on in vain efforts to improve public transport system. In my opinion, for a city which is believed to have highest number of two wheelers in the world there is very less chance that these people will park their vehicles and opt for public transport system which is really pathetic. The new systems that are being introduced including BRT and metro are mere blind adaptation of some fancy systems used elsewhere in the world.
What is needed is careful planning keeping in mind the scenario which will be there 15 years from now because even doing things on war footings will require that much time for an idea or concept to finally become a reality in India. The solutions which are being considered now will address current issues not future but by the time these things are implemented we will be already ahead of those needs. Most important is expansion of cities and make these expanded units independent; by this I actually mean ‘self-contained’. Hinjewadi, for example is developed nicely as far as industries are concerned but it is not inhabitable for any punekar! It doesn’t feel like Pune. Due to this all the new townships coming in and around hinjewadi are just being a means of investment for handful of financially well-off people in Pune and Mumbai. This is reason for long traffic jams in hinjewadi area because the roads were not built simultaneously with the IT park so as to facilitate commute of more than 1 lakh people working in the area most of whom have personal car.
This is just a glimpse of what happens when a section of city is not self contained. The situation in Mumbai and Bangalore is even worse. In Pune there is still considerable mobility to the traffic and also the time required to commute a particular distance is less as compared to other cities. And traffic for a note is only one of the problems associated with the huge population. Others as usual include unemployment, poverty, castism etc.
In the past few years, unlike to what Dr. Ambedkar suggested, the reservations are being increased slowly since we became 50 year old nation. As per Dr. Ambedkar’s suggestions there should have been no reservations since 1997! Due to this those who are in open category and don’t get something just because they got few marks less are moving abroad and those who get through the same also move abroad because they’ve better opportunities or they fear the same consequences which they didn’t face for the time being. And we call this brain drain! This is for sure reversible but the reversion takes a lot of time and also increasing senior citizen population in India because those who move abroad for money and opportunities move back to spend the retired life peacefully in India! The reverse brain drain which was proudly announced by media in 2008 recession lasted only for a couple of years and now people are again going after those opportunities!
Personally, I think that if this continues to happen, which I fear will definitely happen, then after a few years India will become a country where senior citizens and reserved people live! I don’t have objections to reservations for economically backwards but what about those who just pretend to be one? Different communities are trying different means to get their name included in the OBC list! Hellloooo... time to wake up! If people start to use wheelchair despite of having their legs in good condition the problem is with the wheelchair and it should be withdrawn from the system. Make a different criterion for those who really need it, no reservation should be allowed after HSC. Time till HSC, is fairly sufficient for any kind of backward student to catch up with the so called open category students. I feel fortunate that there is no reservation for marriages till date, but I fear that in the future, there will be such reservations as 1 open category marriage is allowed if 1 marriage in a cast is successful and if someone who has reservation remains unmarried he/she will have 1st right over the bride or groom! Pathetic! But that’s how it might turn one day.
Coming back to my point of self-contained units of a city. I recently read news that six new cities will be built on Mumbai-Delhi corridor. This actually should be a headline and people in all the strata of our community should look after conceptualization of this idea. This reminds me of statement by Mr. Narendra Modi, he urged people from Gujarat not to move to Mumbai instead, whatever they like in Mumbai, and he’ll provide everything in Surat. This really is a thought for tomorrow. How long will Mumbai survive with so much inflow of people from the entire country? I have never heard of slums in Shanghai, or slums in Singapore but Mumbai harbours Asia’s largest slum Dharavi! I feel that rather than building new cities on Mumbai-Delhi corridor, development of existing cities is important. Cities like Nashik have remained underdog for decades. Development of these cities and creating employment opportunities there will definitely stop people from such cities moving into other ones. The employment opportunities should be good enough to be able to be compared with hinjewadi and should be accompanied with development of roads, residences and other important things that are necessary for survival of a city. While doing this, it should be noted that now food, clothes and shelter are not the only basic needs of man.
It is also important that politicians and policy makers understand that creating employment opportunities doesn’t mean that budget and deadlines of under construction roads, flyovers and dams be increased indefinitely. I really don’t understand this. In India, there is rampant cost escalation and also delaying of deadlines for infrastructure works. Probably it’s the only country to have such a lenient system. In most of the European countries and in America there is a fine if a contractor cannot complete the work in given deadlines. I have accepted that our country has left creativity and innovative abilities. We look for ideas that have been implemented elsewhere; blindly copy those here without taking into account what actually are the conditions and is the idea really worth to be copied? I don’t know how many people know this but there used to be one column in newspaper ‘Sakal’ titled ‘Kalpana suchva paise kamva’ which was started by a retired colonel and he himself suggested idea of BRT which was really adopted in Pune city and everyone knows what happened later. But many people don’t know about the article in Sakal and also don’t know that the column was stopped immediately after there was big uproar in the society about the transport system. The title however was appropriate because those who implemented the system in the city surely earned a lot from it!
There cannot be a full and final solution for this problem but there is definitely a need to utilize our population better than just making them sit in front of the computers and work for the western countries. We need these people both physically and mentally in India.
Reduction in country’s dependence on imported goods surely will help in reducing unemployment. I am not saying that no one should use imported goods. But instead of importing it why not manufacture here just like Indian manufactured foreign liquor? This will save a lot of foreign currency as well. I don’t know economics behind it; I only understand that maintaining foreign currency is good.
I know many people who have fields back home but came in cities like Pune-Mumbai because there are better opportunities than agriculture! I hope Mr. Sharad Pawar understands gravity of the situation. I have learnt that India is primarily an agriculture based country. But then why are farmers either moving away from agriculture or committing suicide? Farmers aren’t planting anything due to lack of funds! Well I think if our country has enough funds to spend Rs. 600 crores on Katraj-Swargate-Hadapsar BRT, it surely can fund such farmers or just rent their fields and produce grains by itself! I remember nurturing this idea with my close friend when a third friend, who was a farmer, argued that why farmers would rent their land to government? Well, my answer was that it’s better than committing suicide!
I remember a phrase in Marathi ‘lekure udand zali, lakshmi nighun geli!’ meaning number of children has increased so much that it has led to poverty! Yes that’s what has happened in past and is again happening now! This is the time to prevent it. It’s definitely not too late. I have shared my views and ideas here. I welcome suggestions, views, criticism and above all contribution!