Friday, July 29, 2016

If we can't build sewers, how will we build towers?

After 2 years of drought the monsoons are back. All Indians should be delighted as the rains clean the air of pollution, the land turns green with new grass and reservoirs fill up, so that there will be no need to transport drinking water by trains. Sadly, there can be no joy for us, because our government rules us instead of serving us. Couple of days back people were stuck in traffic for up to 6 hours in Gurgaon after a rain shower. India is a tropical country and cloudbursts are not uncommon so drains should be built to cope with heavy rains. How difficult is it to build proper drains? Between 1859 and 1868 Joseph Bazalgette built 82 miles of sewers in London at a cost of 4.2 million pounds. If that is bad, then Paris built its first sewer in 1370 and even has its own museum for sewers. Which means that building an effective sewer system should be child's play, right? All we have to do is copy what others have done. If we have any doubts just invite foreigners to build it for us. Of course, they will charge but they will complete the project on time, the sewers will last for at least 100 years and by ensuring smooth flow of traffic will save a fortune in wasted petrol and productivity. But this will not happen. Why? Because the project will take a few years and so will not help in winning the next election, and there is a lot of money to be made from illegal construction which block water outflow. Anyway, the monsoon lasts for a couple of months only, there may not be a cloudburst and people forget quickly, so who cares if people, especially women, are stuck for hours with no bathroom in sight or if thousands die, as happened in Kedarnath in 2013. There should be no lack of knowledge. The government has spent Rs 2.5 billion of taxpayer money on training civil servants in foreign lands. To learn what? We should have the right to examine these fellows on what they have learnt, apart from enjoying themselves that is. It is not wholly their fault. Politicians want civil servants to be grateful and suppliant and not get uppity. They do not want someone with an independent opinion, like Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan who said that the economic growth was like that of a "one-eyed king in the land of the blind", when politicians were bragging about 7.56% of growth of the economy. Recently, former Governor, Subbarao has written a book detailing how Congress fellows put him under enormous pressure to reduce interest rates even though inflation was soaring. Now this government forced Rajan to resign by its nasty behavior because he has not reduced rates by as much as politicians demanded. They never learn do they? Congress fellows were bragging in Davos about growth rates of over 9% before the economy sank. Rajan is not a civil servant so he refuses to toe the line. Politicians and civil servants, waterlogged streets and sinking economy.

No comments: