Our Life, Our Times :: 46 :: Random thoughts on CAA

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

One can understand the opposition to the Citizens Amendment Act. With our secular claims, granting citizenship on the basis of religion appears to be obnoxious and is generally revolting against thespirit of secularism. Whatever might have been the considerations, the law seems to be flawed. One might say that it is what the previous governments did not do following the Nehru-Liaqat Pact more than half a century back and that it is the “unfinished business” that this government has brought to an endand yet it does not quite gel with our secular traditions. One feels certain that there must have been other options available to the government to achieve its objectives but these were not availed of. And the result has been furor and tumult and veritable chaos in the country.

Already, a few petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court quite a few of which are by members of a few Muslim organisations. Whether the law is in conformity with theConstitutional parameters will be decided by the Court. But, in the meantime it has aroused antipathetic feelings among the Indians as well as the Indian diaspora. Among the foreign political parties the Democrats in the US and the Labour Party are clearly unhappy with the provisions of the Law. They did not expect the largest secular pluralistic democracy to frame a law that excludes practitioners of one particular faith from its ambit.

A rumour is floating around that as soon as the government realized that the NRC in Assam produced an unexpected result – that of exclusions of around 19 lakh individuals many of whom are Hindus, the government hastened to bring in the CAA in order to exclude Muslims infiltrators or those Muslims whomay not have the necessary documents to prove their length of residence in India. The idea appears to be to get at only the alleged Muslims infiltrators leaving out those of the other communities, especially Hindus. Thereby the Government advertently stepped on the toes of North-Eastern states, particularly Assam by acting in breach of the provisions of the Assam Accord according to which the cut-off date for determining infiltrators was 25^th March 1971 as against the cut-off date of 31^st December 2014 indicated in the CAA.

The cut-off date thus was pushed away more than forty years during which many more infiltrators – predominantly Muslims and Hindus – would have entered the state. While Muslims may eventually get deported or repatriated or become stateless Assam would be saddled with many more lakhs of Bangladeshi Hindu infiltrators for whom there is nothing provided in the law. Whether they would be absorbed in Assam after grant of Indian citizenship or will be distributed among several states is not known. The law is curiously silent about it. The law overlooked the fact that an infiltrator is an infiltrator regardless of his religion.

The Assamese thus are landed with a problem that they do not like one bit. They have always opposed the way they were being swamped by outsiders, particularly from Bangladesh as their identity, language, traditions and way of life came under threat and was likely to be overwhelmed by the massive induction of foreigners. Their fear was that they would be subsumed under the sheer weight of the foreigners whom they wanted to be ousted from their land. By remaining silent on this scorethe CAA does a bad turn to the Assamese.

One wonders whether the Citizens Amendment Act was really needed. The problem was straightforward, that of throwing out the illegal residents from the country. Assam had the largest number and its problem was more acute. Under the Assam accord some work was done to identify the foreigners but it was the then Assam Government of TarunGogoi which played foul and dragged its feet. The Indian National Congress, the party then in power, thought it had got a vote bank thrown into its lap without ever trying to get one. It never showed in keenness to forcefully implement the existing laws to push out the illegal immigrants. An opportunity of clearing the state of all infiltrators was thus lost.

It is the policy of acquiring vote banks by political parties that is putting the country and its people in difficulties. While the Congress government remained inert in Assam and remained mute and inactive witnesses to the influx from Bangladesh, sometimes even welcoming them as prospective vote bank a similar attitude was displayed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and later by the Trinamool  Congress in West Bengal. Today Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress is in vehement opposition of CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC) for fear of losingher vote bank of Bangladeshis. She is singing a different tune today as when she was in the Opposition she would harangue the CPM government to expel the Bangladeshis.

Likewise, the new legislation of CAA has at its back the votes of those who are benefited and BJP thinks that its expectation of this windfall is legitimate. While in the East it hopes to garner the votes of Bangladeshi Hindus in Assam, in the West it is the Sindhis who are likely to go en bloc in its favour in any election. The latter are already pro-BJP and the thousands and lakhs who will be benefited will add to their strength. This apart, if NRC is implemented in West Bengal the state’s Hindu population may feel obligated to vote for the BJP feeling relieved, as it were, from the oppressive presence of the Bangladeshis.

There are so many unanswered questions that one tends to feel that the some lose knots were left to be tightened before the bill was tabled in the Parliament. But one cannot get away from the feeling that in the whole imbroglio political parties are clearly seen to be playing the game of vote banks without any regard to the interests of the country. The loser in this game are the country and the state of Assam as most of the other North Eastern states are already covered by the system of Inner Line Permits (ILP) that are to be obtained by outsiders before they attempt to enter any of them. There was a recent report thatMeghalaya is thinking of introducing the system of ILP. It is only the state of Assam which will have to deal with the hundreds and thousands of illegal immigrants and, in all probability, absorb them within its borders.

One wonders whether the change in the philosophy for grant of citizenship has undone the Partition which was based on religion. If all Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh are to be given Indian citizenship, the partition would seem to be undone. While Pakistan and Bangladesh throw out their Hindus the Indian Muslims remain rooted where they are.The new philosophy does not seem to have taken into consideration either the spatial constraint or the limited natural resources that the country possesses. If all Hindus of the world are to be given Indian citizenship on demand, as the RSS seems to suggest, would we be able to accommodate or feed them all nowthat we are already 137 crore?

*Image from internet

Death in the family

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

I have lost another brother – this time the eldest one who was a kind of father figure, especially since all of us collected at Bhopal after our respective retirements. He, Sanjoy Bagchi, surviving for 90 years somehow lost the battle with multiple ailments. Towards the end he went under a total life support system but started to sink and eventually passed away on the 20^th evening.

He was a lively person and was a foodie and loved the best of liquors and wines which he could afford being a UN pensioner. Even a few months back he would have “mangoras” and pakoras at the Arera Club to go with his regulation tots in the evenings. Having been to every continent he had developed a keen interest in different cuisines. He was even adept in cooking Mexican paella. It was he who told me to try Schnitzel in Vienna when my wife and I were going there on a brief visit.

He was a precocous child who turned out to be a very bright young man. He scored 240 out of 300 at the IAS interviews in 1953 along with another batch-mate who I think was K. Natwar Singh. He was a voracious reader. After getting into the IAS he became a member of the World Book Society and got Sir Winston Churchill’s six volumes on the Second World War. Eventually he built up a huge library of around 5000 books, most of them hard cover, which he donated to the MP Institute of Good Governance named after Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a friend from his college days. His philanthropy was phenomenal. He used to donate money to several institutions which he felt were deserving of his compassion. He provided financial support for the family of the help he had had for the last twenty years. The Arera Club was his first love and he went and donated Rs 5 Lakh to it for installation of a lift.

In his career at the UN agency of GATT his Director General continued him as his consultant for two decades. Later his distinguished stint at the GATT saw him installed as Executive Director of a “non-official” body of International Textile Control Board by representatives of several countries some of which were not very friendly with India. Textiles were his forte having been Additional Textile Commissioner and Textile Commissioner of India for substantial lengths of time.

A good life – with some lows and many highs – has now come to an end. Hopefully, he will meet up with those from the family who preceded him and have gone where all mortals go after their life on the planet comes to an end.  I, who is left behind, can only wish eternal peace for his soul 

Memories of an ordinary Indian :: 30 :: Chandigarh

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Chandigarh Museum

After the stint in Union Public Service Commission I hopped on to another deputation that came my way. It was to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGI for short) located at Chandigarh to function as Deputy Director of Administration. It was basically a job that dealt with the Institute’s establishment and personnel, including the technical staff and the faculty. My post was of the level of a Dy. Secretary of the Government of India and I had to work directly with the Director whose rank was equivalent to that of a Secretary in the Central Government.

The Institute was created on the pattern of the All India Institute of

A Corbusier creation (from internet)

Medical Sciences of Delhi – the only difference being unlike the All India Institute the Chandigarh Institute did not run under-graduate courses. The Institute had a top class faculty and was headed by a rare intellect as its Director who, professionally, was a Gastroenterologist. Dr. PN Chuttani who was the Director during my time was indeed a rare intellect who had a sharp mind and had the ability to grasp problems in no time. While professionally he was considered outstanding his administrative acumen was no less. He was highly regarded in the entire northern region and the chief ministers of the four northern states were his personal friends. I happened to meet at least two of them in his room.

A poplar in Chandigarh swaying in the breeze

The Institute was replete with modern architecture. Located in Sector 12 of the “Garden City” it was a huge complex with a 700-bedded hospital, an administrative block, a college of nursing, hostels for students and nurses and a smattering of residential houses of various types one of the higher types of which was allotted to me. This apart there was a forest in the land that had remained unutilized. On many a night I could hear jackals howling in the distance. The Institute also had a few larger houses in Sector 24 which was at a little distance near The Punjab University.

My job was very largely routine personnel work, pretty uninteresting. I

Punjab Assembly, another
 Corbusier creation (from internet)

was not quite convinced about the need of a post of this seniority for the work that I was supposed to do. In the Delhi Institute my counterpart had far greater range of functions. Here in Chandigarh it was far too circumscribed, To take care of the hospital there was a medical superintendent, for civil and electrical engineering aspects there was a superintending engineer and for items of academic work there was a dean supported by a registrar. I was there merely for the personnel, supported by an administrative officer and an assistant administrative officer. I thought there were too many men and I was doing precious little. The contrast from the UPSC was stark. While there I was dealing with ministries here I was talking to heads of various departments of the Institute.

Laburnums in Chandigarh

I had been to Chandigarh earlier. In 1961 we were taken on an instructional tour to Bhakra- Nangal dams and the planned city of Chandigarh from the National Academy of Administration. The two dams were still works in progress but the two, together, were called new temples of India by Jawaharlal Nehru. He dedicated them to the nation two years later in 1963. Chandigarh was planned by Le Corbusier, a French architect of repute and his associates. The Punjab Legislative Assembly, the High Court and the Secretariat were designed by him and, to this day, have remained as markers for the city. The complex has since been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Then, a very enlightened ICS officer, MS Randhawa, intervened and had flowering trees planted all over the town in a way that one or the other sector of the city would always be in bloom right through the year. The neighbouring sector of PGI, Sector 11 had jacarandas and every March we would see purple all over when the trees would be in bloom – a spectacular sight.

It was a garden city indeed. In Sector 16 there was a Rose Garden

The Rock Garden

named after the former President Dr. Zakir Hussain, a rose garden that is considered the biggest in Asia. It was one of the very large gardens I have ever seen with hundreds of varieties of roses. The townsfolk had cultivated a gardening culture and every house regardless of its type had some land where the residents would be nurturing flowering and fruiting plants.  I too had quite a bit of land in the front and the back of the bungalow where my help would try and grow vegetables. There was a huge chikoo (sapota) tree on which we could see a large number of chikoos hanging. The Institute’s horticulturist, Shyam Lal, was dedicated to his job and he would visit every house often to ensure that the gardens, including the lawns, were properly maintained.

I

Another view of Rock Garden

t was because of the efforts of Shyam Lal that the Institute would regularly win prizes in the rose shows of Delhi. He would start preparing his plants soon after the monsoon and select the best ones for exhibitions at Delhi. A very amiable man, he was always eager to share his knowledge of gardening in general. For a man without a degree his knowledge was remarkable.     

He one day brought along one of his friends, Nek Chand, a supervisor of Punjab PWD. Nek Chand, it seems, was stationed at a place where he had lot of land lying unused. Sitting in this barren land he conceived of a garden of his own imagination and started building it with broken crockery pieces which eventually came to be known as Rock Garden. It was for these broken crockery pieces from our cafeteria that he had come to me. He did get into some rough time when the Punjab PWD would entertain none of his arguments and started taking departmental action against him. Dr. Karan Singh who used to be the Health Minister in 1995 visited his garden during his brief visit to Chandigarh. Under tremendous pressure, the PWD allowed the case against Nek Chand to die.

 He kept working on his garden, enlarging it to around a 25-acres affair

In our back yard

and adding variety to it so much so that today it is a “must see” tourist spot in Chandigarh. Footfalls in the Rock Garden are reported to be only second after Taj Mahal. Nek Chand, on the other hand literally went places, getting invites from countries in Europe and setting up such gardens in France and Germany. That he would be accorded state recognition by the award of Padma Shri was a foregone conclusion. That diminutive, rather submissive looking man indeed had imagination mixed with aesthetics and left behind a solid legacy for the city. I was sorry to see the news of his passing in the newspapers a few years back.

Another creation of Le Corbusier is the Sukhna Lake on the outskirts of the city. In the 1970s it was a very quiet place with an occasional picnicking family around. Corbusier had forbidden motorized boats to ply on this reservoir of 3 sq. kms. at the foot of the Shivalik Hills. Motorised vehicles were also banned on top of the dam leaving it as a promenade for walks. Later Punjab High Court banned food carts

Sukhna Lake

anywhere near it to prevent contamination of the waters even though till today its waters are not used for human consumption. This is in stark contrast to our own Upper Lake of Bhopal where not only motorized boats ply freely, scores of push carts assemble near the boat club on the bank of the Lake to do business without let or hindrance even though its waters are supplied to 40% of the city’s population to satisfy their basic needs. This is a matter of attitude. While in Punjab authorities are more concerned about people’s well being, the same would not seem to be the case in Bhopal.

Chandigarh has since emerged as one of the most livable cities in our country. It is beloved by people who live here who often call it “City Beautiful”. Nehru had a vision of making it something that represented India’s future – an educational and cultural hub in the midst of the bounties of nature. Whether his dreams were fulfilled would better be answered by its own citizens. I for one had a very nice time in the city,

Again, in our backyard

picking up a few very sincere friends. I also acquired a life partner while I was in Chandigarh. However, despite all the creature comforts I decided revert to my department even before my term came to an end. My people posted me to Nagpur – a station that was unpopular with my colleagues. For me Nagpur was a turn-around and I never looked back. But that is another story.

                              

Slowdown in automobile sector

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

A newspaper reported the other day that automobile sales did pick up before the festive season only to fall in the following month. The car sales registered a negative growth in November, one of the reasons assigned for the slide being the impending imposition of BS 6 emission standards from 2020. Likewise two wheeler sales too dipped after picking up in October helped by the festivals. The upshot is that the sales refuse to pick up.

Many reasons have been assigned for the ever-enlarging inventories of the automobile manufacturers. Despite various inducements, including hefty discounts and freebies, footfalls in showrooms refuse to pick up. The slowdown is for real and the economy has hit a bump. Automobile sector hitting a rough is something that cannot be expected in an aspirational society like ours. New hordes are joining the middleclasses frequently and yet the sales do not pick up. People are, apparently, just not loosening their purse strings. Obviously there is something serious that is holding them back and keeping them away from automobile show rooms.

While in couple of respects it is a good thing – the slump in automobile sales – it is indeed bad for the economy. Lesser numbers of vehicles on our urban roads are likely to offer relief from traffic jams. Our roads are not built for heavy traffic and that too of mostly SUVs and frequently there is a lockdown on the grid either for reasons of breach of traffic rules or absence of management of the traffic. Inadequacy of road space and incompetently engineered roads  present their own problems. The fact, therefore, is that too many passenger vehicles of small as well as unduly large varieties are competing for the ever-shrinking overly encroached-upon road space.

The other reason why a slump in automobile sales is to be commended relates to our environment. It is a straightforward fact that lesser the number of vehicles plying on the roads the lesser is the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). At around only 25 vehicles per thousand of the population, as against over 800 in advanced countries, our vehicles emit GHGs at an unconscionably high rate. There are reasons for it. Improperly maintained engines with inefficient combustion emit GHGs at a high rate. Many of our vehicles are not attended to as per the requirements prescribed in their manuals and hence become inefficient over a period of time burning more fuel than necessary and emitting more GHGs than warranted. Then, of course, our traffic management in urban India leaves much to be desired. While even flow of traffic is good for the vehicle’s performance in so far as its oil consumption is concerned it also allows the vehicle to pump lesser amount of toxic gases and carcinogens in the air. 

Be that as it may, the government too has not been lending a helping hand to the car buyers. The automobile sector has been treated as a cash cow by the central and the state governments. We in India pay one of the highest tariffs for a litre of gasoline. Even the road tax has not been spared. Over the years road tax collected from car buyers has soared although condition of the roads has not improved. Indian road conditions are well known and the manufacturers design their vehicles keeping that in view. This has been the practice ever since independence when during the early years of the nation’s life foreign car manufacturers used to advertise their product with the assurance that their products were built to meet the challenges of “Indian road conditions”. Many of those manufacturers have since moved to this country and now are, hopefully, more aware of these conditions.

Even car insurance premia have moved northwards. With a regulatory mechanism in place, the insurers are merrily raising them virtually every year. In explanation it is being said that the amounts involved in insurance pay-offs have increased manifold – the amounts it seems go beyond a crore with so many high-end cars plying on the newly-built expressways that are virtually death traps. This year I received hardly any benefit for my “No claim Bonus” as the annual premium had gone up. The insurance agent told me that it has been estimated that these days a car costs Rs. 4000/- a month even if it stands on its four wheels. He may be wrong but he wouldn’t have been far from the real figure.

While a slowdown in the automobile sector can be welcomed for a while it is not a happy augury for this country. It was riding on the automobile industry that the country clocked a growth of around 10%. While it is true that one cannot really expect the industry to remain in a state of perpetual growth yet the growth needs to continue till the country gets fully developed. Growth in it fosters many technically oriented jobs and now that we are close to the era of electric traction for automobiles many new kinds of jobs would be in the offing. Hence, a turnaround in the economy including in the automobile sector needs to commence soon for the economy to start growing as soon as possible. 

There seems to be a ray of light visible as the latest reports say that Maruti Suzuki has raised its production by about 4 percentage points vis-à-vis its production in October 2019. Apparently, things are picking up as the reports on the economy in newspapers are sanguine about a revival soon.

*Photo from internet

From my scrap book :: 14 :: Rising environmentalism among youngsters

http:..www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Soothing greenery in an urbanscape

It is encouraging to see that concern for the city’s environment is on the rise amongst the youngsters. Plays are being enacted on street corners and elsewhere bringing home to the audiences the value the people get from a robust and green environment, And what provides it are trees, and more trees,

The provocation for this sudden upsurge in environmentalism among the young men and women was the revival of the proposal for construction of a rest house and some residential units for the elected members of the Legislative Assembly. The proposal was initially mooted after the 2014 State Elections. It was, however, withdrawn in the face of huge uproar by the general public as the proposal involved in cutting down a few thousand trees enhancing the depleting tree cover in the Arera Htlls in particular and the town in general. Then, as well as now, the proposal had been initiated by the Speaker of the House. While the Speaker of the last Assembly saw reason in the arguments of the environmentalists who were opposing him the Speaker of the current Assembly seems to be a little more tenacious and does not seem to be in a mood to yield.

One must say the lead in opposing the avoidable construction for our worthies was taken by Dainik Bhaskar, the local Hindi daily. As usual the newspaper takes its justifiable stance in favour of the city’s environment then the people who too are equally concerned chip in with their opinions and statements. This helps in fleshing out the newspaper’s stance giving it a greater substance. The newspaper appears to have a committed team in its stable of reporters which ferrets out facts from closed and dust-laden files to bring them out for the readers’ benefit.

As usual this time, too, the team has done remarkable work and brought out facts that were forgotten due to efflux of time. Some of the facts brought out by the newspaper are -

-       - There are 230 worthies in the Assembly but already there are as many as 272 residential units available for them. Besides, the Members have cornered several flats that have come up under various projects in the town under due provisions made for them. They either live there or, according to some other reports, have rented them out.

-        -As much as 33 acres land is still lying unused in the old MLAs rest house area which can be used for erecting new buildings when required. There would seem to be no need for felling trees in a new area of Arera Hill which has since been highly colonized and has lost most of its greenery.

-       - Post 2014 elections when the former Speaker proposed the new construction for our worthies the first act was to cut down around 1150 trees. The authorities seem to be always ready with axes in hand to chop down any tree that they see standing on a piece of land proposed for any construction. Eventually, the Speaker’s plan did not materialize but the trees stayed felled. Perhaps in a bid to cover up, a report of planting of 3000 trees was prepared – a report that was patently false.

Felling of trees for various development projects in urban areas has come in for criticism by superior courts in the country. Journalists have also been active in criticizing the loss of green cover all over the urban landscape in India. Even Bhopal has been flagged for serious implications due to loss of trees and consequential rise in temperature. Last July the newspaper Asian Age reported “an ominous climate change may be knocking on the doors of the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal, now almost a barren shadow of it once green past”.

The paper reported a phenomenal increase in the city’s Mean Maximum Temperature (MMT) during the last ten years. As per the weather data the MMT which was 33.22 degrees Celsius in 2010 has galloped to 42 degrees Celsius in 2019. No wonder the City then had a climate that was every bit salubrious. The paper said that the massive loss of green cover in the city was the key factor in turning it into a heat chamber during the last summer. The city has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the four cities that are the fastest in losing their respective green cover. The newspaper quoted Commissioner Bhopal Division who is reported to have said while launching a tree planting campaign, “We are already late. A climate disaster is waiting to happen if the situation is not reversed”. Presiding over a plantation drive the Commissioner is enlisting several organizations including the Indian Army for assistance.

 A recent report in a local newspaper said that it is the “netas” and “babus” who are champions in felling of trees. If the city is to be saved from a rising MMT people, especially young ones, have to take concerted action to stop “netas” and “babus” from wielding the axe.

Our Life, Our Times :: 45 :: MP CM & ministers indulge in a rip off

http://www,bagchiblog.blogspot.com

MP Legislative Assembly

When the Times of India reported earlier this year that the state treasury of the UP Government had been bearing the income tax burden of the chief minister and other ministers for years the Yogi Adityaraj government promptly announced that the law in this regard would be repealed soon. True enough, an amendment was soon introduced in the House and the law in question enacted during the era of Late VP Singh was repealed. The Chief Minister and his ministers have now started paying Income Tax from their respective pockets.

Later the Times of India again reported that the UP was not the only state where taxes of ministers and chief ministers were being paid by the state treasury. In fact, according to its report, there are five more states where Income Tax of the chief ministers and ministers are paid from the respective state treasuries. The states are Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

 In Madhya Pradesh this has been continuing since 1994. Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have been disbursing these taxes for more than 50 years – since 1966 when the state of Punjab was bifurcated and the states became separate entities. In Punjab the practice was discontinued in 2018 on orders of the new chief minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh. Chhattisgarh continues to pay these taxes of its chief minister and ministers after it was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000.

Madhya Pradesh government has not made any move to repeal the law that sanctioned payment of the income tax of ministers and the chief minister from the state treasury. This is despite the fact that the current chief minister is a crorepati and there are as many as 187 MLAs who are likewise rich enough. The Madhya Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms has reported that MLAs in the MP Assembly have on an average net asset of around 10 crore and asset of 114 Congress MLA on an average is 9.41 core.

The chief minister and his wife are filthy rich having movable and immovable assets worth more than Rs, 200 crore. And yet he wants the state to pay his Income Tax. The ability to legislate on their own salaries and allowances has allowed these aberrations to creep in to the system. Aberration is a mild word; in fact it is a rip off. While MLAs have been periodically raising their salary and allowances they have not taken care to modify this particular piece of legislation that makes the state foot their tax bills. According to information available on the internet, the salary of a MLA of Madhya Pradesh is Rs. 2.50 lakhs per month. Besides the salary, there are other allowances and perquisites. All this makes them virtually living on the people of this supposedly backward and poor state.

If they happen to have any shame the chief minister should have a bill moved immediately in the Assembly for repeal of the law that makes the state treasury bear the burden of income tax of these multi-millionaires. 

Other states like Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh also need to critically examine the matter and repeal the relevant laws to lighten the burden on their respective tax payers.

*Photo from internet

Bhopal Notes :: 81 :: We have a dysfunctional municipality

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Two or three days ago the local daily Dainik Bhaskar published photographs of deplorable condition of roads. Drains were shown as overflowing and so were sewers and this was happening right across the town. I got interested as one of the photographs was from my neighbourhood on the Idgah Hills.

The manhole that was overflowing was the one on the tri-junction of Cambridge School and it seems to have been overflowing for a few days. It does so frequently; perhaps the sewer lines do not have the capacity to take the muck and it gets accumulated until it moves upwards and finds an outlet through manhole cover.

I think it is highly callous of the Municipal Corporation to allow this noxious fluid to flow freely through the road with substantial traffic passing by every minute. Students of Cambridge School go sloshing through the accumulated filthy water. Besides, a fishmonger sets up his shop on the road next to it and vegetable and fruit sellers park their pushcarts not far from it. People buy their needs despite the very unhygienic surroundings. Surely the Corporation officials would be collecting their informal tax (hafta) from these street-merchants periodically. And yet all these people are made to ply their trade in such insanitary environment.

Free-flowing manholes are so common that when we see one we take it as given. Actually, when we come across municipal workers de-choking a manhole we are surprised as it is something which is rarely witnessed. And, if the municipal workers happen to be wielding a de-choking machine it would seem to be out of this world. The other day, while passing by from the New Market area I happened to come across a municipal worker at work on an overflowing drain with a machine. The Municipality, quite obviously, has these machines that have been bought at the tax-payers’ expense, yet these are generally moth-balled or are deployed in areas inhabited by VIPs or are not deployed at all. The overflowing drain near Cambridge School is a case in point.   

My mind travelled back a few decades to pre-independence India where the municipality of Gwalior, the capital of the princely state of Gwalior used to do these civic jobs quite regularly. Although all the operations were done manually yet they were done at regular intervals. As a child I used to position myself on the verandah of our first floor house overlooking the street to get a ring side view of what the municipal workers would be up to. I distinctly remember the equipment they used to bring to switch on a tap embedded in the road and to attach a fat hose to it to wash the roadside drains. The high pressure of water from the hose would clean away in minutes all the muck in drains deposited over time.

Likewise, two people would come to clean the manholes. They would remove the heavy lid and uncover the manhole and one of them would climb down into it with a pan tied to a rope. He would manually shovel the muck into the pan and then holler for the other to pull it up. A pretty simple operation and, if conducted regularly, was devoid of any risks. In our national capital this system was prevalent until recently when a few workers were killed by the noxious gases. Obviously manholes had not been cleaned regularly and the lethal gases were allowed to accumulate.

Soon after independence all these operations were discontinued, seemingly because we had gained freedom and cleaning up the muck from the drains apparently became redundant. It is such a pity that what a feudal administration could ensure for the health and wellbeing of the citizens the people’s own governments have been unable to do. During the feudal times it was the fear of the higher-ups that made the municipal workers to carry out their duties regularly and sincerely. Now it is free for all; nobody needs to carry out one’s duties. Besides, things have become so big that the right hand does not know what the left hand does. In the process, hardly anything gets done. No wonder things are in a mess.

The Municipal Corporation is provided with every necessity by way of men and material and yet it fails to carry out its duties. Obviously, it is very loosely administered and the officers have no grip over the areas of their activities. It is nothing but sheer inertia and carelessness that keeps them away from carrying out their functions effectively. No wonder the city suffers from the ravages of overflowing manholes, potholed roads, denuded greenery and what have you.

*Photo from internet

Bhopal Notes :: 80 :: The city cannot take any more tree-felling

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Environmental ignorance is pretty widespread in this country. Unfortunately, even the people in responsible positions display this ignorance. One wonders whether environment should become a compulsory subject of study for children in their school years. A grasp of the elements that make our environment seems to have become necessary in the current times as many of our actions interfere with it to make our life eventually perilous for us.

An elected official of the Assembly, clearly, does not know that bringing down a full grown tree cannot be compensated by simply planting saplings. While with the felling of a decades old tree destroys its ecology, it could also be the nemesis for the organisms that find shelter in and around it and prosper because of its benign help. Numerous micro habitats find support for themselves in a tree; it also provides on the ground below a different kind of habitat in the shape of leaf-litter, decaying wood discarded by the tree and so on. There are trees that support some specialized kind of invertebrates. Hence a tree is just not a part of the landscape, it is a living and thriving universe for the organisms that inhabit its ecosystem. And the whole thing – the tree and its ecosystem – contributes in its own unobtrusive way to the larger ecosystem in which we and many other organisms live out our lives

This is being stated in the context of the ongoing controversy regarding felling a few hundred trees for construction of rest houses/living quarters for the honourable members of the state Legislative Assembly. The proposal in this regard went into cold storage after the term of the last assembly came to an end. It was the Speaker of the last Assembly who had initiated the proposal but withdrew it when there was a furore in the media about felling of trees. But by the time he agreed to withdraw his proposal a thousand-odd trees had reportedly been already cut down. Damage had been done but the consolation was that the Speaker was amenable to reason who quietly put the lid on the whole thing.

The current speaker is apparently not so malleable. He has spared none, including a former chief secretary who runs a redoubtable NGO that handles work relating to human settlements. And, trees – their existence or otherwise – have everything to do with humans and their settlements. She, therefore, had every reason to come out in the media and speak her mind about and against the proposal.

People of Bhopal have now become sensitive about cutting down of trees. Perhaps, the last summer was what broke the camel’s back with its searing heat. That is when the citizens realized how loss of trees in thousands for several developmental projects (many misconceived)  has adversely affected the city’s climate. The green cover of the city that was once more than 60% has now been reduced to only 11% and, if not checked, is likely to go down further close to a dangerous 4%. The citizens of this town fear for that summer day when the sun will fiercely beat down on the city to make it boil in its stark and bald surface bereft of greenery inflicting misery and pain to them.

Clearly, there is no scope for felling more trees in the city even if it happened to be for the sake of the highest dignitary of the land, leave alone the members of the Legislative Assembly. In fact, there is a need for planting of more trees in a campaign mode (like that of Swachha Bharat) so that in another ten or fifteen years the town regains its green cover. If the honourable members have to be provided in the meantime new rest houses or living quarters let the Speaker go and look for open vacant land in the town and negotiate with the government for construction on it. It is not necessary that the living accommodation for the honourable members should be provided only on Arera Hills. Enough damage has already been done to these Hills; it cannot be degraded any more.

*Photo from internet  

Our Life, Our Times :: 44 :: Cry of the automakers

https://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Maruti Suzuki plant

Auto sales are not encouraging even in this festive season. Massive discounts and even new models have failed to increase the footfalls in the showrooms. The sector claims that volumes touched the two-decade low in July and is set to dive down further. Demands have remained subdued and according to the manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra there has been a double digit fall in dispatches to the dealers.

The commencement of the festive season with the Ganesh Festival followed by Navratras has not stimulated the demand. Maruti Suzuki continues to suffer from a sustained crash in demand. The Company’s volumes fell 86% in August 2019 to around 98000 from around 145000 in the same month last year. No wonder Maruti Chairman is crying hoarse about the slowdown. The head of sales of the South Korean automaker Hyundai too said “the pain continues to haunt” and the footfalls in the show rooms have become scarcer. Overall the volumes have been negative. He came out with a new perspective that the sentiments are down despite two new entrants – South Korean Kia Motors and the British MG Motors – in the market. The two neophytes, however, have a strong waiting roster and are likely to eat into the market of the existing brands. Both the brands are expected to market their products at more than Rs.10 lakh. These may, therefore, eat into only the up-market segment, leaving the bread-and-butter segment untouched where sales refuse to pick up.

For that RC Bhargava of Maruti Suzuki provides supposedly cogent answers. According to him, cars are getting expensive and are no longer affordable. Even the cheapest model in the Maruti stable, the Alto 800, has faced a drop of 50% in demand. He says that the man who wants to graduate to a four wheeler from his two-wheeler finds the former has gone up and away – beyond his reach. Bhargava seems to suggest that the slowdown is only partly true. He feels, there are numerous other factors that seem to be at play among which mobility-sharing is certainly not one.

According to Bhargava, the factors like stricter safety and emission norms (BS VI), enhanced insurance costs and higher road taxes in several states have depressed the sentiments. He also said that at a time when automobile sales are at a historic low the hike in the taxes on petrol and diesel in addition to higher road taxes and registration charges has not helped matters.

One cannot perhaps agree with him when he says that the Indian car buyer is not like the European or the Japanese buyers the per capita income of whom is far higher. But, when it comes to regulating the system everybody wants the best regulations which push up the unit prices making them unaffordable. He feels the affordability of a product has to be seen in the context of Indian incomes. One might, therefore, ask whether to make vehicles affordable in India the government should allow manufacture of products that are shoddy, even those that are made by the foreign manufacturers who have set up shop in this country? How long are we going to be left behind advanced versions because of our low income? In that case we might as well revert to bullock carts or horse-driven carriages.

Even the argument that the price of the entry model too has gone beyond those who contemplate graduating from a two wheeler to a four-wheeler cuts no ice. Bhargava’s own Maruti Suzuki discontinued manufacture of the former entry level vehicle Maruti Suzuki 800 presumably for lack of demand. Even the production of Tata’s Nano that was specifically meant for this very segment had to be discontinued for severe attrition in its demand. Indians are an aspirational lot, they were more so till before the slowdown hit the country. Few, therefore, would like to be seen in a Maruti Suzuki 800 or a Tata Nano. The fall in demand of Alto 800 could well be because it is now identified as the entry level vehicle from the Maruti stable in which many on-the-up individuals feel shy to be seen in. We Indians keep a keen eye on others, especially our neighbours, so that we show off ourselves as better than them. It is nothing but a proclivity towards one-upmanship.

Although with the prevailing frequent jams on urban roads one tends to think that the downturn is because probably the country has reached a point of saturation in so far as personal vehicles are concerned. But that is not true as, at 22 persons per thousand owning cars (in 2016), India is far behind Europe and America where car ownership is close to almost hundred percent. But if and when we attain the vehicular saturation as seen in the US God alone knows what will happen to our mobility. People would not be able to go about their businesses, policemen would not be able to chase criminals, fire services would not be able to reach the site of the fire and people are likely to remain rooted wherever they happen to be for reasons of massive traffic jams. 

Obviously, we are presently better off though now and then we come across news of jams here and there. One feels the country will do well to shun parity with the US or European countries in terms of number of cars per thousand heads. The urban scene in most of these countries is revamped and is generally a couple hundred years old whereas even the recently built roads in our cities cannot take so many automobiles – big or small. These constraints have to be acknowledged and not ignored.

We have passed through a severe downturn in the automobile industry and yet one sees reports of high-end luxury cars costing a crore or so descending on the market. A recent report said the Swedish automobile giant Volvo is putting out two luxury sedans/SUVs for the well-heeled costing more than a crore. As already stated Kia and MG Motors have accumulated a healthy waiting line-up. Reports have been seen of Mercs, Audis, BMWs of the luxury segment doing well. Quite clearly, it is the bread and butter segment that has been hit hard.

 But that too is likely to witness a turnaround soon as green shoots are now visible. The farm sector is progressively showing greater strength after a very generous monsoon and, hopefully, it will stimulate the entire economy triggering a general revival. One cannot forget that it was the automobile sector that the country rode to a double digit growth rate. Surely the growth wil return; it is only a matter of time. As economists say downturns and upturns are cyclical and, generally, one follows the other, mostly after reasonable gaps

*Photo from internet

Memories of an ordinary Indian :: 29 :: On to UPSC in New Delhi

http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com

Dholpur House

After Jabalpur I had quite a whirl. I went to Bhopal on a short posting from where I went to Jammu & Kashmir (about which I have recorded my memories quite extensively). From J&K I was sent again on a brief posting to Visakhapatnam from where I came up north and landed in Delhi. This was a posting that was significant for me as it was on deputation in the Union Public Service Commission. Initially it was for three years but lasted for more than four years.

It is here that I learnt a lot about the methods and office procedures used in the Government of India. The Commission is meant for recruitment to the superior services of the Government of India by the methods of competitive examinations, interviews, promotion, contract and deputation from other organizations including those of the government. Located in the Dholpur House on Shahjehan Road well known to the civil service aspirants I was in little awe of the organization. It is through this formidable organization that two of my older siblings joined the civil services after qualifying in the tough written examinations followed by rather testing interviews. Later I, too, followed them and joined the civil services. I spent around four years and seven months in this remarkable organization, initially as Under Secretary and later as Deputy Secretary. The Chairman of the Commission was one Mr. Damle of the ICS (the ICSs were still around in 1970s) and the Secretary was one Mr. Rajendra Lal who was known for his penmanship all over the Government of India. It was from him that I learnt the art of drafting, that is, whatever little I know of it. In those days we were only three deputy secretaries and one Controller of Examinations in a higher rank. There were about half a dozen Members of the Commission who were either retired civil servants or distinguished men from other areas, including the defense forces and various scientific fields.

After a brief induction training I was placed in the Appointments Wing of the Commission. I had two sections under me, both headed by very competent section officers and I worked under the supervision and control of Deputy Secretary (Appointments) who was a very genial officer of the Central Secretariat Service. I had to process cases of appointments (including ad hoc appointments in the superior posts) by selection and by promotion by the method of screening by departmental promotion committees headed by a member of the commission nominated for the purpose by the Chairman of the Commission. As there were two under secretaries in the Appointments Wing ministries of the Government of India were allotted between the two. There was, however, a third under secretary who used to look after only the appointments of the officers of the All India Services.

Things went in an even tenor till I was promoted as deputy secretary. I was then placed in the Recruitment Wing of the commission which dealt with recruitment by interviews. I inherited a huge amount of arrears as the post had remained vacant for a few months. The secretary used to monitor the progress of disposal of recruitment cases every week. The cases used to be identified by the date by which applications were to be submitted for recruitment to the advertised post. The short-listing of candidates used to be initiated by the under secretary concerned and the short-listed candidates would be recommended to the specified member of the commission for approval after a recheck by the deputy secretary. For very senior posts the cases would be routed via the secretary.

 Level jumping was prescribed in the office of the Commission and hence as under secretary and deputy secretary I could submit cases directly to the Chairman – an officer of the rank of secretary. The target used to be to issue calls for interviews within a month or so of the last date for submission of application and my arrears were formidable – dating back almost a year. Slowly I worked my way through and started nibbling at the arrears. Working late hours and on Sundays and holidays I brought the arrears down to very manageable levels and my room which used to have piles of folders of applications in hundreds lined up along the walls started looking more decent. In the weekly monitoring meeting around three months after my promotion I saw the Secretary breaking into a smile as I gave him the figures.

The recruitment by interview entailed scrutiny of applications by the under secretary and then by the deputy secretary. Depending on the number of posts advertised and number of applications received a reasonable criteria used to be decided upon keeping in view the qualifications and experience of candidates to short-list them for interviews. Generally 7- 8 candidates would be called for interview for a post and the rest would be weeded out.

No wonder there would be writ petitions by rejected candidates in high courts and the Supreme Court and they were in pretty high numbers. Dealing with them took quite a bit of time and one had to be careful with the use of language in response to the petition as the image of the Commission could not be compromised. It is because of them that I learnt to organize matter and tried to use the most appropriate words in the response. With a remarkably adept secretary above me I used to keenly see the corrections made by him by his highly sharpened pencils. Much later one day when a file with a response to a writ petition came back without any correction by the secretary I could not believe my eyes. Thinking that he had just signed on the file in a rush I went to him and asked whether he had seen the rather lengthy draft. When he said he indeed had I felt very elated as I thought my day was made.  

There was a Hollerith Section in the Commission. Though I had nothing to do with it the in-charge of the Section once invited me to take a look. The machine was an electro-mechanical punch card machine that helped in summarizing information. Applications received by the UPSC for recruitment by examinations would be routed through the Hollerith Section creating records of each applicant in punch cards with the vital items of information like year of birth, educational qualifications and so on. It was kind of a precursor to computers which have now replaced the Hollerith machine. Much later, in 1982 I saw somewhat similar machines being used in China for manufacturing cloth with designs punched on punch cards.

The lunch break at the Commission used to be interesting. More than half a dozen officers of the level of under secretary and deputy secretary used to meet in one of the rooms for tea and refreshments. There would be gossip and jokes and peals of laughter. Some of them are still around and we keep in touch by very rare phone calls. That is what happens when people start aging.

*photo from internet