Of venal & corrupt Health Administration

http://bagchiblog.blogspot.in/5/2012of venal & corrupt health administration

All is surely not well with the Health Administration of the country. The other day two shocking revelations were made in the press. One of them related to detection of serious irregularities by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on health and family welfare in respect of advices and letters of recommendations from some experts submitted to the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) regarding several drugs. These recommendations, apparently, read the same, word-for-word, as those submitted by the drug companies concerned. Experts’ endorsements are crucial testimony for country’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation for allowing launch of drugs in the market.

                                              

The disclosure revealed a nexus between some experts and a few drug companies enabling unquestioned endorsement of the scientific recommendations of their own products for onward transmission to DGCI. These are required to be submitted by the experts after due consideration of the drugs’ content and their efficacy. Evidence, however, has been unearthed indicating that the experts merely affixed their signatures to the recommendations submitted by the companies concerned. Worse, some were submitted on the day of their receipt by the experts, obviously without according to them due consideration. More alarming was the fact that the experts are from a few iconic medical institutions of the country and some of them happen to be working as professors in these institutions.

The innocent, ignorant and unwary patients will be at the receiving end if drugs are pushed in such a manner by the drug companies in collusion with highly placed medical experts without being evaluated in regard to their therapeutic potential. Suspect efficacy of drugs will hit all classes of people across the board and with high drug prices it would be a sort of double whammy for them. Already, people are suffering under the weight of their medical bills. A recent report said that the “out-of-pocket” expenditure – the percentage of expenditure incurred by households on medicines – has increased by 75% during the past couple of years. High medical costs, along with rising prices of essentials, are biting the common man. According to 2011 World Health Organisation estimates about 70% Indians spend their entire income on healthcare and purchase of drugs. With the prices of drugs for common ailments like cardiac disease, hypertension, diabetes creeping up northwards, market watchers are asking for State intervention. Poor are simply unable to afford many drugs. Decrying the ineffectiveness of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy even ruling party politicians are concerned about common man’s woes. 

Such improperly evaluated medicines can also adversely impact exports once they fail to live up to their claims. India is considered the pharmacy of the world. While the domestic retail market in 2008 was estimated to be valued at more than Rs. 55000 crores ($10 billion app.), exports were worth around Rs. 38000 crores ($6 billion app). Unless checked, corrupt practices at the stage of approving and launching a drug in the market would amount to shooting oneself in the foot. 

The health sector is somehow saturated with corruption, whether at the Centre or in the states. A former central minister of Health & Family Welfare was involved in several scandals during his tenure, including what is known as the “vaccines scam”. He ordered the public sector units to discontinue manufacture of various essential vaccines only to throw open the entire market to one of his cronies for easy pickings. Ultimately, the other day he was charged by the Central Bureau of Investigations in a Delhi court for abusing his authority and permitting a medical college to admit students without having necessary faculty and clinical facilities. Establishment of medical colleges has become a very paying proposition. Politicians, in collusion with money bags, bribe their way into acquiring prime lands for establishing such colleges, the approval and later recognition for which is easily obtained by pulling strings and money changing hands. The President of the Indian Medical Council, Dr. Ketan Desai, and two others were arrested last year for taking hefty bribes for granting recognition to a medical college. No wonder, the quality of medical education leaves much to be desired. Barring a few reputed hospitals, medical institutions and (elderly) private physicians, the general quality of medical attention to the patients is poor, more so to those belonging to the economically weaker sections.

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) appears to have become a goldmine for corrupt politicians, doctors and administrations. The ambitious goal of the Mission is to “improve the availability of and access to quality healthcare by people, especially for those residing in rural areas, the poor, women and children”. The second news report was about the sleaze detected NRHM in Madhya Pradesh where, one after the other, two directors of health services have been caught with huge amounts of liquid and fixed assets - all disproportionate to their respective incomes. In the earlier case even the minister in-charge was involved along with the principal secretary of the department of health, an IAS officer, who, mercifully, is being prosecuted. The minister resigned but escaped prosecution. In the recent case, the director was found to be in possession of assets worth more than Rs. 100 crores (Rs.1 billion app). Serious irregularities were detected in the process of tendering and procurement of medicines, mosquito-nets, etc. During the raid at the director’s residence his wife reportedly advised the Lokayukta (Ombudsman) officials to raid the houses of ministers to whom a crore (Rs. 10 million) of rupees was required to be delivered every month.

 One can imagine the astronomical sums that have been poured into the Mission from the fact that in Uttar Pradesh alone Rs 10000/- crores are believed to have been siphoned off. Two chief medical officers and three other officials were murdered and scores of engineers, doctors, administrators and ministers have been charge-sheeted by the CBI.

Conscious of the abysmal level of public expenditure on health (1.4% of GDP) the government has been allocating huge amounts of tax-payers’ money to the states in an effort to achieve universal health coverage, including cashless treatment. The Centre’s resolve to boost government spending can potentially make high-quality care accessible to all. It has not shied away from making necessary allocations as can be imagined by the way the system has been milked by the powers-that-be at the Centre and in the states, especially, in MP and UP. No wonder, despite the (now waning) growth story India ranks below the Sub-Saharan Africa in many international health-related indices. While the corrupt, cannibalistic predators do not allow the benefits of outlays to reach the needy, high drug prices and raging inflation prevent millions from buying essential medicines because of pervasive poverty – a significant facet of the Indian growth story.

 Clearly, the corrupt hordes in the government wouldn’t allow it to achieve its own “goal” of building a healthy and strong India.

 

Of LPG, edibles & prices

http://bagchiblog.blogpost.in/5/2012/of lpg,edibles & prices

A time seems to have come when people should give up cooking. A recent report said that a domestic LPG cylinder is soon going to cost Rs. 996/-, virtually a thousand rupees, for those who have an income of more than Rs.6 lakhs per annum. The Standing Committee on the matters relating to petroleum ministry has made the recommendation indicating that those who are rich should not be supplied the subsidised LPG. For all one knows, the recommendation may even get accepted regardless of the fact that identification of those who are in receipt of the specified income is going to be a tough proposition. If implemented, only the salaried class would get trapped while others, who are professionals, traders and self-employed, etc. and have to declare their own incomes (which most don’t do entirely) are likely to continue to get subsidised LPG.

The scenario that is unfolding is quite frightful. As the rupee continues to lose value vis-a-vis` the dollar one cannot really imagine where all it is going to end up. In another year or two a LPG cylinder could hit Rs. 2000/- taking it well beyond the reach of many. With the growing trade gap, rising fiscal deficit, astronomical sums poured into the social sector (mostly siphoned off) and flight of foreign investment from the country things have gone from bad to worse. Dollars have become so scarce in the foreign exchange market that the currency has been constantly appreciating against the rupee – one of the major factors which has made prices of petro-products go through the roof.

LPG has been the standard domestic fuel for the last few decades and has been instrumental in changing urban lifestyle. Modern Indian kitchens are not made for the kind of fuel that, for example, my mother used to use – soft coke, fire wood and cow-dung cakes. Besides, they have disappeared from most cities and towns. Unfortunately, for an urban household currently there is no alternative to LPG except electricity as energy source. That, too, has been becoming expensive virtually every year. With the distribution companies unable to check persistent power theft and the prevailing rampant corruption in their ranks power tariffs are hiked annually. Using electrical appliances of high-wattage is, therefore, beyond the reach of many middle-class households. One could perhaps tap solar power but not all houses get enough sunshine. In rural areas women and children forage around for fire wood, dried twigs or whatever, being unable to afford even the subsidised LPG. Only the rural rich now can afford kerosene or LPG. Soon they too may have to give them up as the government progressively loosens its hold over fuel pricing. 

Cooking food at home may soon become a thing of the past. That will be a great tragedy. Indians cannot do without food cooked at home. Besides, influenced as they have been over hundreds of years by different cultures, the recipes are such that food has to be cooked in oil and fried with colourful and aromatic spices. Every meal, from breakfast to lunch and from afternoon snacks to dinner, has to be cooked. If cooking fuel becomes unaffordable, Indians wouldn’t know what to do. Very few Indians can survive on raw vegetables or processed meats. In fact, in many regions of the south and the east none would ever have raw vegetables barring tomatoes and onions. Westerners, perhaps, can manage with their salads and mass-produced cold cuts, but not Indians. 

Then, there is another emerging problem. Even if one is able to somehow manage the fuel the question that remains is what does one cook – prices of everything edible having gone impossibly high? Prices of edible oil and vegetables, for instance, are sky high. Prices seldom come down even in the season when availability peaks. What is more, there are hardly any seasonal vegetables now which, in season, used to be cheap. Every vegetable, whether of summer or winter, is available right through the year. Hence one finds okra in winter and cauliflowers in summers – thanks to advancement in horticulture and a little more easy availability of cold-storage facilities. But prices always rule high despite the fact that India is one of the top producers of vegetables in the world. According to the figures of the Ministry of Agriculture India is at the top of the world in production of peas, second in production of aubergines, cabbages, cauliflowers and onions and third in potatoes and tomatoes. Yet, the prices rule high because of the middlemen and the evil of cartelisation. While middlemen push up the prices of all food items –vegetables, lentils and food grains – cartels don’t allow the prices to come down. Farmers and consumers are at the receiving end of their intervention.

Some farmers, however, have become smart. They have taken to injecting chemicals into vegetables to ripen them quickly to get a better turnover. That, in the process, they inject toxins which, on ingestion, could be a health hazard is of no concern to them. This aberration is of recent origin but has continued unchecked for want of effective governance. Likewise, colouring agents and sweeteners are routinely injected in fruits like papayas, watermelons, melons, pomegranates, etc. Wellness-gurus recommend steady consumption of fruits and vegetables without realising that most of them carry contaminants that could prove to be toxic. In any case, the prices have shot up to such astronomical heights that they have become unaffordable for a large section of the population. Supplies may not be matching the demand, stimulated as it is by rising incomes but, if one goes by ads, fresh vegetables and fruits are also being increasingly used in manufacturing of cosmetics – moisturisers, fairness creams, feeding the craze for a fairer complexion. No wonder, even the lowly banana, once a fruit for penniless sadhus wandering in the wildernesses for moksha, are going for Rs.40/- a dozen.

Non-vegetarian stuff, too, has not remained behind. In a decade and a half mutton prices have shot up five fold, from Rs.60/- a kilo to Rs.300/-. The same has been the case for fish and poultry. While fish could carry deadly heavy metals, poultry in many parts has been detected with heavy dosage of harmful antibiotics. Nonetheless, once again the rise of the middle classes has fuelled the demand that has further been stoked by television channels showing foodies cooking and hogging non-vegetarian stuff. The way things are going, soon non-vegetarian food may become unaffordable for a vast segment.

The country has certainly witnessed rapid GDP growth. But, so have the prices of fuel and edibles risen exponentially in tandem. Largely a poor country, with widespread hunger and malnourishment, no wonder India is scraping the bottom of several international social sector indices.

A new CDP for Bhopal

bagchiblog.blogspot.in/2012/4/a new cdp for bhopal

Once again a fresh city development plan (CDP) is in the making. It should have come in 2005 but, as usual, there has been a delay. A plan published in 2009 under the influence and, presumably, guidance of the real estate lobby was such a disaster that it was rejected at the highest level in the state. One, therefore, awaits the fresh one with trepidation. Every plan plans for expansion of the town at the cost of thousands of hectares of forests and farmlands. Bhopal already has expanded in all directions without the necessary civic infrastructure. Yet none seems to be keen to cry a halt and say “this far and no further”. What is more, the 2005 Plan that is still current has not been fully implemented. In any case, it does not seem to have improved the quality of life of the people, reduced poverty or improved their productivity which should be and are the objectives of CDPs. And yet a fresh plan is under preparation. Regardless of that, builders and colonisers are relentlessly expanding the city’s limits. One does not know whether their expansion is covered by the ongoing CDP or ad-hoc permissions.

Nonetheless, the “First Citizens’ Agenda” on Bhopal’s Real Estate was organised in November 2011 by Hindustan Times in which ministers and senior bureaucrats of relevant departments had a brain storming session with builders and developers in respect of CDP 2031. No such Citizens’ Agenda seems to have been organised later by the newspaper regarding, say, agenda for environmental conservation or for transport, healthcare and educational facilities. One wonders whether the real estate lobby, along with builders and colonisers, will again eventually become prime movers of the CDP.

The points that emerged from the discussions are mentioned in brief below:

1)      According to the UAD minister, Babulal Gaur, Bhopal has “all the elements, be it lakes, hills, greenery, road, rail and air connectivity”, which make it an attractive real estate investment destination. Likewise, the minister for Housing and Environment (H&E) felt that when returns from the stock market are not encouraging investments in real estate and bullion appeared to be viable alternatives – thus pushing for more investments in real estate.

2)       While saying so the minister for H&E admitted that with the relentless influx of migrants civic infrastructure of the city has come under tremendous pressure which, according to his Principal Secretary, would require eight times more of expenditure than what is being spent now if the demands were to be met. This kind of money is difficult to find.

3)      A mention was made of housing for economically weaker sections of the population generally living in slums and a suggestion was made that every project had to have a component for them to ensure prospects of work and employment for them close to their residences.

4)      One of the builders raised the issue of vertical vs horizontal development. He said that colonies and complexes have come up 25 to 30 kilometres away from the city centre where the authorities have not been able to reach civic infrastructure like roads, water supply lighting and facilities of healthcare and police. Fear was expressed that a time might come when a trip to airport will take 6 to 7 hours for a flight of an hour to Delhi or Mumbai. 

The concerns expressed are genuine but, unfortunately, there was no attempt to arrive at a consensus. The ministers’ meet with the real-estate tycoons seemed to indicate that the latter will play a major role in the development and expansion of the town. One does not know whether, like other media houses, Hindustan Times is also eyeing a piece of the cake that would be on offer when CDP 2031 materialises.

Be that as it may, Sunita Narain, the noted Indian environmentalist, in one of her pieces expressed a sort of a truism when she said, “The real-estate lobby has a vice-like grip on Indian cities. All too often land use decisions are based on what will make a quick profit for the real estate developers. And without fail, the decisions disregard common sense. The casualties are social and environmental.” One, therefore, is left wondering why those in the government sought partnership of the builders, developers and colonisers who are generally not concerned about larger social benefits and have only personal gains in mind. 

Nonetheless, certain issues that were highlighted need to be considered to determine whether the municipal area should further be expanded under the new CDP. One is, of course, the distances that one has to cover now to get out of the town as colonies and complexes have come up and are coming up all around the town at great distances from the city’s outlets. The second is lack of civic infrastructure for the residents of such colonies/complexes. When the city, currently with its smaller confines and a smaller population, suffers from utter lack of civic facilities and services, it is quite unlikely that the municipal corporation would be able extended them, whatever their quality, to these colonies/complexes in the foreseeable future, given the massive costs involved as indicated by a senior government official.

What perhaps is a more pertinent reason against further expansion of city limits is that the current 2005 CDP still remains unimplemented to a pretty large extent. No work has been done on as many as 24 roads that were planned and there is no hope of work relating to them starting in the near future.

In the circumstances one feels that the new CDP should tackle following issues that touch the lives of the people and refrain from planning, as far as possible, to bring more and more farmlands and forests within an enlarged municipal area:

1.      First of all the attempt should be made to implement unfinished part of the current plan

2.      The new plan should upgrade the (progressively deteriorating) quality of life of the citizens by taking up the following: 

i) Improve quality of roads all over in the town, including those that are within the old and new residential colonies

ii) Revamp the sewerage of the town to expand the capacity of the system to meet the needs of the next twenty years. Despite the money spent in the Bhoj Wetland Project and that taken on loan from ADB sewers still keep leaking and one can even now find manholes in dangerous and deplorable condition

iii) Planners have to contend with the problem of effective management and disposal of solid wastes. In the course of next few decades it may become far more acute. As landfills create more problems than they solve using the solid wastes for generating power is environmentally a far better alternative. Many countries are doing so and even Delhi has now got a plant

iv) Provision of adequate water for a burgeoning population is going to be a major issue during the coming decades. Upgrading the supply system obviating the chances of major and minor leaks that occur so frequently involving in losses of hundreds and thousands of litres of scarce water is imperative. Besides, recycling of waste water and rain-harvesting should be planned in a big way and implemented. Speeding up of meterisation of supply should be prioritised with planning for equitable water supply all across the town

v) The new plan should focus on eradication of slums. The government had projected in 2005 that Bhopal would be slum-free by 2012. That has not happened.  Resettlement of slum-dwellers in low cost housing should be a priority. Likewise, with projections of an enhanced rate of migration into the cities during the next few decades the plan should also provide for meeting the influx by making arrangements that avoid further slumming.

vi) Besides, a comprehensive plan involving development of trade and commerce, education and healthcare in the neighbouring smaller towns could be thought of to entice migrants from their respective catchment areas to prevent their crowding in Bhopal 

vii) Public transport needs to be planned in a manner that it eases pressure of private vehicles on the roads. Already some buses have been introduced under the JNNURM but they are not optimally used. Their quality and efficiency needs much improvement. Besides feeder services have not been planned so far. Unless buses running on the main arteries are fed from hinterland of the stops public transport would never become popular and the roads will progressively get choked. Even the BRTS might not be of any help

viii) Planners have also to think of providing a system of mobility to the commuters comprising roads, railways, metro or light-rail or monorail or sky trains, cycle tracks and pedestrian pathways to control the vehicular emissions. World over efforts are on to reduce vehicular emissions, automobile sector contributing about 30% of the greenhouse gases. So far there has been no attempt in Bhopal to control it despite the relentless increase in the number of vehicles and even check on polluting vehicles is conspicuous by its absence. 

ix) Regardless of the acts of omissions and commissions in respect of the city’s water bodies a new plan should indicate measures over the next two decades for their sustainable use and conservation in a scientific manner. Likewise plans should be made to revive the city’s streams which have now become worse than drains. Many cities in West and the East have revived dead urban rivers and streams for improving the environment. Measures should also be formulated to prevent further colonisation of the surrounding ecologically important hills and forests.

x) The city is known for its green ambience but it has lost a great deal of its roadside canopy which needs to be fully restored. From the Nawabi era, it has also been known for its parks and gardens which have constantly been encroached upon or are being degraded. The master plan for the city should provide for their revival and upkeep in order to extend to the citizens a better and green habitat.

xi) The older part of the city is littered with rundown, neglected  heritage structures which need to be taken care of. The plan should provide for their aesthetic conservation and beautification of their surroundings with suitable facilities for tourists. In fact, these structures need to be properly marketed.

xii) Above all, for effective governance in the city the CDP should determine the extent to which it should be expanded and allowed to grow. Planners need to make an objective assessment of the critical lack of civic governance in the city’s current smaller avatar and, given the unlikelihood of any significant improvement, therefore, need to set a limit to its growth. They should, nevertheless, plan for strengthening the civic governance to provide clean, healthy, secure, productive and fulfilling life to the citizens of the city.

Cantankerous Mamata

http://www,bagchiblog.blogspot.in/2012/4/cnatankerous mamata

“Mamta is a dangerous, populist demagogue: economically illiterate but politically astute – (a) deadly combo!" tweeted Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman & MD of Biocon, when Mamata Banerji fired her own party’s minister of railways last month to the surprise and outrage of many and discomfiture of her ruling alliance, the UPA. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s is a fair assessment. Mamata has thrived right through her political life on populist demagoguery. A great street fighter, many used to call her “rabble-rouser”. She could rustle up a few lakhs to choke the Kolkata streets at the drop of a hat. Mercurial and combative to the core, she has had a history of intemperate, even aggressive conduct inside and outside the legislatures, including the Parliament. Age does not seem to have cooled her down.


Highly strung and self-opinionated, Mamata has progressively degenerated into an unpredictable politician, an authoritarian leader and a difficult ally. Her stunning success last May at the Assembly elections when she demolished the 34 years old Left Rule of Bengal was a great achievement as well as an opportunity and a time that should have bred humility in her. I still remember Kolkata on the 13th May 2011, the day the counting of votes was to commence and results declared. The air was pregnant with expectations. The city folk abandoned their normal chores. Glued to their TVs, people deserted the streets and buses and taxis were scarce. There was a curfew-like ambience barring that Rabindra Sangeet (Tagore songs) rendered by Bengal’s popular and distinguished singers – a passion with Mamata – was being played on the public address systems since early morning. Hope permeated the atmosphere – the hope of a change, poribartan, as Mamata called it. As the evening wore on and the results of the elections started trickling in, the excitement was palpable. Announcement of every seat captured by Mamata’s Trinamool Congress was accompanied by roars as people exploded into hysteric excitement. Numerous Bengali language TV channels went to town carrying the latest about an overjoyed Mamata and brooding Left Front bosses. With all the results out by 5 PM people seemed to have heaved a sigh of relief at the loosening of the decades-old stranglehold of the communists and their goons. They had overwhelmingly voted for “poribartan” – a change that they had been waiting for for years.


It is not yet a year since Mamata, followed by hundreds and thousands of euphoric supporters, triumphantly walked down to the historic Writers’ Building to take over the reins of a populous and backward state and already disillusionment seems to have set in. Arrogance born out of infliction of a stupefying electoral defeat on her arch enemy and exhilaration of heady power has bred a perceptible brashness, even a certain amount of recklessness. She and her party-men have come to believe that they can do no wrong and, hence, everything is blamed on the Opposition – the CPI (M) and, of course, the Congress, her electoral alliance partner with which she has had for long an uneasy relationship. Suffering from paranoia, Mamata feels that everybody is out to do her in. Whether it is a fire in one of the reputed Kolkata hospitals or inordinately large number of infant deaths in hospitals or rapes in Kolkata’s outback, for her every such incident is a “set-up” or a “conspiracy” to malign her. Suspecting such a conspiracy she recently had a reputed professor arrested for lampooning her.


Intolerant of dissent, she could not stomach the temerity of Dinesh Trivedi of deviating from what Mamata thought was the brief given to him. Populist, as she is, she could not have countenanced burdening the “aam aadmi” by hiking railway fares. Further, what got her goat was the gumption of Trivedi to thank Prime Minister, other ministers and leaders of various parties including the leader of the Opposition before thanking his own party leader besides articulating the fact that the Railways were languishing in the ICU – pointing finger at Mamata who was his immediate predecessor. No wonder, she blew her top.


With an amorphous ideology, Mamata was earlier a fighter generally for the peasants. Now she is trying to take up the cause of all the down-trodden to the discomfiture of the CPI (M). Even goons of the Left, finding themselves lost in the new milieu, promptly aligned with her party. Believing she has captured the Left support-base, she is out to encroach on the UPA’s territory. She has embraced its “aam aadmi” and has claimed him as her own. Not only did she sabotage the UPA’s plan to hike oil prices and later to bring in FDI in organized retail, she even fired her own Railway Minister for committing the ‘sin’ of harming “aam aadmi”, embarrassing the UPA.


But, for her, it was business-as-usual as she had embarrassed the Prime Minister earlier as well when she haughtily withdrew from his entourage for Dhaka disagreeing with the water-sharing Teesta Accord – a pre-negotiated international treaty. Embarrassing her alliance partners comes to her so naturally. She had twice walked out of the NDA government and, now, with her 19 MPs, she keeps the UPA government on tenterhooks. What matter to her are her votes in West Bengal, the country’s international image or its economic progress hardly figure in her political calculations. Indulging in meaningless trivialities, she thinks she can lead the state towards progress by banishing Marx and Lenin from its schools, painting the capital blue, or asking her supporters to have no truck with the commies, running a state television channel and her own government’s newspaper.


She hardly is an achiever. Her neglect of two years of the Railways made the organization comatose, not that it was very much up-and-about when she took over its reins. It had already slipped into somnolence having become a victim of “coalition compulsions” more than a decade back, headed as it has been by self-centred regional parties. Hostage to politics of votes, the Indian Railways is seemingly devoid of any future. All the talk about high-speed trains, air-conditioned lounges, introduction of anti-collision devices, etc., is hogwash. Some tinkering will be indulged in with the rolling stock or the tracks here and there but it will take eons for it to roll out a swanky high speed train that China rolls out in dozens every year. Passengers will continue to crowd into virtually primitive, pests-infested coaches and journey in trains that clatter along swaying from side to side on rickety obsolete tracks. Ride in trains like those of Trains `a Grande Vitesse (TGV) of France, Shinkasen (Bullet Trains) of Japan or the Chinese High Speed Railways will, therefore, remain a dream for generations of Indians.


Apart from having a running feud with the Centre to which she has been issuing ultimatums for bailing her out of the financial mess, she has done nothing so far for the state. With nothing tangible to show for her year-long rein in West Bengal it remains to be seen whether, with her limited vision, the electoral victory that Mamata branded as “the second independence” is going to deliver the Bengalis from their misery and backwardness.

"Urban Growth Boundaries" check urban sprawl

bagchiblog.blogspot.in/2012/03/urban growth boundaries check urban sprawl
Urbanisation is a phenomenon that is closely linked to industrialisation and modernisation. More and more people are flocking to urban centres seeking well-being and prosperity. There is no gainsaying the fact that urban areas are centres of economic opportunities and growth, providing not only the wherewithal for survival but also prospects of self-actualisation and openings for satisfaction of the higher needs of human life. No wonder, worldwide a phenomenon that is called the “urban drift” is occurring and people are migrating from rural areas to urban centres seeking the “good life”.

The United Nations had projected that half the population of the world would be living in urban centres by 2008. That has indeed already happened. Around 74% people in developed countries now live in urban centres and 44% in less developed countries. It is a far cry from 1950 when only 30% of the population resided in towns and cities. In India, too, urbanisation has picked up pace, though rather belatedly. Through most of the decades after independence India was predominantly a rural country with an agrarian economy. Almost 80% of the population used to reside in the country’s villages. That, however, is changing. The 2011 Census has revealed that about 32% of the country’s 1.2 billion reside in urban areas which means migrations from rural areas have picked up during the last few years. In absolute terms, while 285 million people resided in Indian urban centres in 2001, in 2011 that number has inflated by more than a hundred million.

Rapid economic growth and a steadily rising population with the inevitable “urban drift” have created a situation that has prompted most of the urban centres to burst at their seams. All over the country cities and towns are growing, spreading out all around their cores in a haphazard manner, gobbling up farmlands and forests. Colonies – authorised or unauthorised – are being built, mostly devoid of civic amenities. Builders and developers are having a field day, constructing condominiums, self-contained colonies or gated complexes where the local bodies generally fail to extend civic services. Neither there are sewer lines nor are there water connections, making such colonies and complexes dependent on groundwater with all the economic and environmental consequences. Besides, for want of suitable public transport such unplanned growth has necessarily promoted use of personalised vehicles, fuelling their demand as also of precious imported oil – a non-renewable energy source – significantly contributing not only to its escalating price but also emission of the country’s greenhouse gases.

Newspapers every day carry advertisements with offers of flats of varying sizes, detached or semi-detached bungalows in plush surroundings. What is more, “aawas melas” (housing fairs) are held where crowds throng looking for their dream-houses. But all the ads or the propositions made at such fairs are for the well-heeled and the aspiring upper (and middle) classes who think nothing of investing half a million or more on a fancy house. There is nothing for the masses that are migrating into urban areas in millions, offering themselves as cheap labour or seeking opportunities for self-employment. Having no other alternatives, they indulge in slumming on the available vacant lands. In fact, Indian cities are not prepared to receive the economically weaker migrants from the country whose numbers are going to rise by about a hundred percent by 2030 when India is likely to become the world’s most populous country.

Even currently, urban India is struggling with the problems caused by uncontrolled outward spread of settlements that in their relentless advances eat up fertile farmlands and the environmentally useful forests. The rural inhabitants are induced to migrate into the urban agglomerates and their lands, if not built upon, are used as dumping grounds for wastes of the newly developed colonies/complexes – a process that has together been branded as “predatory” urbanisation. Be that as it may, the year 2030, therefore, holds out a frightful prospect before the country.

In order to restrict the urban sprawl a visionary set of laws has been enacted by several states of the US. The first was the state of Oregon which, enacting and enforcing laws for delineation of “Urban Growth Boundaries” (UGB), transformed its capital, Portland, into the greenest of cities in the country. The concept of UGB, essentially the antithesis of ad-hoc and predatory form of urbanisation, seems to hold an important lesson for the exploding Indian cities.

In a blog posted by her, Ishani Mehta, Urban Vision's Fellow at The Young Urban Leader Program working in Portland, says that by keeping urban development contained in a compact boundary UGBs promote more efficient land-use planning, along with an assurance for businesses and local governments about where to place basic infrastructure necessary for future development. Moreover, limited resources can be invested on making existing infrastructure more efficient rather than constantly building new capacity for an ever-expanding urban area.

She says that in Portland the metropolitan region is required by law to have a UGB that contains at least 20,000 acres (81 sq km) of vacant land, in addition to maintaining restrictions on the development of farmland. While land outside the boundary allows protection of forests and farmland, the land-use within the boundary supports urban services including roadways, water supply and sewerage systems, and other utilities that are conducive to compact and liveable urban communities. The state-wide planning law requires the city to maintain a 20-year supply of land for future residential development inside the boundary and also determine the requirement to maintain 20-year land supply for new jobs, thus allowing for sustainable economic expansion of the urban areas as well. An urban growth report is prepared every five years that analyses both the residential and employment needs of the region. If the report suggests need for expansion of UGB, it is considered, but only as a last resort. The metropolitan council, however, has powers under special circumstances to expand the UGB to meet immediate needs to provide lands for specific purposes that cannot be accommodated and cannot wait till the next urban growth report.

A time now seems to have come to halt India’s urban sprawl. Every small city seems to be enlarging itself to eventually become a metropolis and every metropolis a mega-polis, steam-rolling over everything that comes in their way – farmlands, hills, forests or whatever. Within their respective confines, people lead a miserable life owing to over-crowding, insanitation, environmental degradation, water scarcity, transport bottlenecks, and what have you. UGBs seem to provide a way out for reasonably restricting urban growth, fostering development of smaller cities, promoting more efficient use of scarce land, protection of rural economy, prevention of denudation of the country’s fast-disappearing forests and enabling people to live a healthy and fulfilling life.

National Postal Policy - challenging the couriers

The Indian Postal System was in the news recently for something that appeared to be a little more positive. The Minister of Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, is reported to have turned his focus on India Post, a department that also happens to be in his charge. He has done so none too soon though, as the department seems to have been sliding downhill rather rapidly despite vigorous efforts made by one of his predecessors, Jyotiraditya Scindia, to modernise post offices and introduce into them Information Technology.

Starting from the scratch, rejecting the departmental logo and introducing a new one, he devised the Project Arrow under which hundreds of post offices were done-up and computerised with a view to improving mail delivery, banking and other services. Soon, the department bagged in 2010 the PM’s award for excellence in public administration. However, the parameters on which the department was adjudged for the award are not known as the improvement that was sought to be brought about in the quality of service largely remained unachieved. Scindia was taken off the ministry even as the Project initiated by him was in the process of implementation. And, therefore, as normally happens in the government, it lost steam.

Now Sibal is talking of a national postal policy which, apparently, will spearhead action to “take on” the couriers and to introduce in more-than-a-century-old Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) most of the banking operations that are carried out by regular banks. While bestowing on POSB the status of a regular bank will have to be decided upon in consultations with several other departments of the government of India and its agencies, action to meet the challenge posed by private couriers will have to be stepped up by none other than India Post.

At the outset, Sibal may have to look for the weaknesses that enabled the private couriers to make significant inroads into the preserve of India Post. The most important reason would seem to be the want of quality in the performance of the department in so far as mail delivery is concerned. Over the years the plummeting standards of performance left the field wide open for couriers to troop in. The department could very well cite exogenous reasons for the same, but many were the ones that could be attributed to its own lack of initiatives.

Time was when the Indian postal system was acknowledged as one of the finest in the world in this regard. Although working in a monopolistic environment it had that in-built system of monitoring mail handling to ensure quality that was coupled with a spirit of rendering service to the community. With all 1st class mails being flown down to the closest air terminal of destinations without any surcharge (not prevalent even in the West) and in-train sorting of letter mail on almost all railway routes, the department developed an unique capacity to reach most of the letters to distant destinations within 48 hours. On occasions letters would reach faster than the then-prevalent telegrams. The ‘60s, ‘70 and ‘80s were its glorious decades.

Later, unfortunately, the needs of the Railways came to the fore. With a view to enhancing their passenger carrying capacity they summarily did away with the coaches in which mail used to be sorted piece by piece. And, later speeding up of trains on the same old shaky tracks made such sorting impossible, anyway, taking that edge away from the department that ensured quality. Soon thereafter the country witnessed convergence of IT and telecommunications with the help of the World Wide Web that acted as a midwife to give birth to an era of instant communications. To start with, it was e-mail by which one could exchange messages containing texts, images, and videos with multiple addresses. While e-mail was initially restricted only to those who had access to computers, the cell phone put the means of instant communication into the hands millions of those who had just a palm-sized handset. With the advent of “smartphones”, technology has put virtually a portable computer in the hands of the people with facility, inter alia, of sending and receiving e-mails and conversing over long distances. Once “cyberspace” became the medium of instant communication conventional messaging, known now as “hard messaging”, had to take a hit.

And it did. The volume of mail traffic in India fell to 6,677.18 million pieces in 2006-07 from the figure of 15,749.30 million in 1997-98 – a hit of severe proportions. Internationally too, there were clear signs of the Internet eating into postal systems. Statistics provided by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) show that between 2008 and 2009 domestic mail volumes were globally down 12 per cent. Obviously, the World Wide Web had a worldwide impact and India Post was not alone in losing its “bread & butter” business.

With the sharp decline in traffic, India Post virtually threw in the towel. Instead of aggressively trying to trap the traffic captured by the progressively consolidating courier industry, it drastically downsized its mail establishment adversely impacting its efficiency. Whatever mail it received – mostly the documents, periodicals and other 2nd class stuff – got horribly delayed in delivery. Even the department’s answer to couriers, the EMS Speedpost, could not match its potential because of lack of manpower and, of course, that kind of agility which is needed to compete with private operators.

No wonder people lost confidence in it. Predictably, the couriers moved in, capturing the traffic originating from corporations, banks and other sundry mailers. They seem to be cashing in on the reported “exponential” growth in mail volumes unleashed by the country’s rapid economic growth and widespread use of the very same technology that hit the department hard. IndiaKnowledge@Wharton, an online resource, found that Pitney Bowes, a mail-management service-provider, is bullish about India finding in it, inter alia, “... rapid increase in cell phone subscriber-base, statement-based credit and debit card usage, and computerized billing by utilities” suggesting an upward trend in mail traffic. Only it was escaping the departmental radars.

One would therefore tend to think it is not a policy that is necessary to “take on” the couriers. What is needed is revamping of the system with proper, pragmatic staffing and a new work-culture that is committed, agile and vigilant to raise the standards of performance by several notches. The Post Office is synonymous with mail (including its express variety); all its other activities, even those related to social and financial sectors, are only add-ons. It is, therefore, imperative for it to take steps to revitalise its mail delivery system to re-inspire confidence among its users and give the couriers a run for their money.

bagchiblog: Killing a Ramsar Site

bagchiblog: Killing a Ramsar Site