Roadside Dillema

This time around the drive to Aligarh had not been that bumpy and bone-rattling as it always invariably used to be, till only a year back. We started from Janakpuri around 6.00A.M., took N.H.24, past Indirapuram, turned right on to the G.T. Road, negotiated crowded market places at Dadari and Sikandrabad, skirted around Bulandshahr, Khurja and reached our destination in Aliigarh in good time-within 4 hours which included some time spent eating out breakfast by the canal bank at Bulandshahr. Earlier on similar errands, our romance with the U.P. Roads had never been so good and that made us complacent on our return journey back to Delhi a few days later.

The return journey was timed at 1.30P.M., ample by any reckoning, to be back to home by 5.30 P.M. Further, to safe on time and fuel, at Sikandrabad, we turned left taking the Greater Noida road (and that proved our undoing), drove through the busy vegetable market of the town with some difficulty , as by then, it had become quite crowded. Little did we think that the testing times await us only a few Kms. away.

The Sikandrabad level-crossing gate was closed and there it was: a mother of all traffic jams; or so we thought. There we remained stuck helplessly- for what then appeared to be ages; at that chaotic point, foaming and fuming, cursing our luck, and other fellow drivers who were maneuvering to go ahead of us in that melee. They generously returned our compliments. Fortunately for us, the altercations did not translate into full-blown road-rage. We didn’t have a twig to hit back the enemy, had he decided to attack us. We were, however, told that there was nothing unique about the traffic jam ( as also the altercations) at this point; it happens about five to eight times a day. We had to keep the engine running all the time, inching forward at the slightest indication of opening. In the meanwhile, the level-crossing gates, alternatively opened and closed at least two times before we could get the opportunity to cross over the rail-lines, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

There could be thousands of such level-crossings around the country, and if at every crossing the common citizens are confronted with the similar type of nightmarish experience four or five times a day, then where are we heading to? The tale of our miseries, however, was not to end here.

A few kilometers on, crossing a bridge over a canal, the road forks: one stretch going to Palwal to join N.H-2 there and the other going to Delhi via Greater Noida and Noida. The traffic transporting goods and people between the towns of the area, their hinterland and beyond merges at this god-forsaken place. Here again we got stuck, and waited interminably, braving all sorts of jam related hazards, for more than two hours. By that time it was dark also. In the headlights of the moaning vehicles, on those two narrow winding roads-one leading to Palwal and the other to Greater Noida- we could see endless line of all manner of passenger and commercial vehicles: buses, vans, tractors with trolleys attached, overloaded trucks, long vehicles, huge container platforms, tempos with passengers precariously hanging out from their open side-doors and, of course, cars with running engines all belching volumes of carbon-di-oxide in the atmosphere. The noise of blowing horns mingled with that of running engines and screaming drivers made for a picture perfect scene of chaos. I had been on the wheel all the time. Reaching home at about 9.00P.M., I had fever and was laid-up for a fortnight. By the time recovered, I had already lost 12 workings days plus three holidays besides a few hundred rupees on medicines and footing the Doctor’s bill .

I am not a pessimist, but it sets me thinking. What price the society has been paying since long in terms of lost man-hours, and economic and environmental costs for this lop-sided development where, in a predominantly agricultural country, the agricultural sector registers the GDP growth not even a quarter that of the rest of other sectors; infra-structure is not strengthened before embarking upon huge industrial projects, and the national resources are wasted in producing luxury goods to cater the creature comforts of the elite few of the society? Diabolic materialism and crass consumerism are robbing people of quality life and tension-free living.

An army of handsomely paid writers write reams eulogizing this growth where the poor and the middle-class India is forced to subsidize its rich and powerful to become still more rich and powerful. With loads of trepidation, I hear car manufacturers, year after each year, reporting 20 to 35% increase over the preceding year in production of their various models. Even presuming that 30% of their product is exported, it leaves us with suffocating number of cars to choke beyond capacity, our already saturated roads. Even at a modest guesstimate, if there are only one thousand Secundrabad ,Dadri type choke-points in the entire country, through which at an average 1500 passenger vehicles with average passenger load of ten passengers pass through, each losing an hour in traffic jams occurring with a frequency of four times a day, the colossal loss in terms of man-hours only will be worked out in the region of several lakhs a day. Add to it the fuel cost of thousands of idling engines on all these choke points throughout the country and hazards of atmospheric pollution caused thereby and you get a rough picture of mindless waste of manpower, money and material which could have easily avoided had they cared to develop and strengthen the infra-structure before executing industrial projects. The government’s ill-planned development policies and activities have been causing huge sufferings to the common man, besides entailing colossal waste of scarce national resources and manpower. When should we expect the government to abandon this “putting the cart before the horse” policy and rearranged the priorities?”

-SANJOG MAHESHWARI

Roadside Dillema

SANJOG MAHESHWARI

                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                          WHITHER DEVELOPMENT?

-           SANJOG  MAHESHWARI

              This time around the drive to Aligarh had not been that bumpy and bone-rattling as it always invariably used to be, till only a year back.  We started from Janakpuri around 6.00A.M., took N.H.24, past Indirapuram, turned right on to the G.T. Road, negotiated crowded market places at Dadari and Sikandrabad, skirted around Bulandshahr, Khurja and reached our destination in Aliigarh in good time-within 4 hours which included some time spent eating out breakfast by the canal bank at Bulandshahr. Earlier on similar errands, our romance with the U.P. Roads had never been so good and that made us complacent on our return journey back to Delhi a few days later.

              The return journey was timed at 1.30P.M., ample by any reckoning, to be back to home by 5.30 P.M. Further, to safe on time and fuel, at Sikandrabad, we turned left taking the Greater Noida road (and that proved our undoing), drove through the busy vegetable market of the town with some difficulty , as by then, it had become quite crowded.  Little did we think that the  testing times await us only a few Kms. away.

The Sikandrabad level-crossing gate was closed and there it was: a mother of all traffic jams; or so we thought. There we remained stuck helplessly- for what then appeared to be ages; at that chaotic point, foaming and fuming, cursing our luck, and other fellow drivers who were maneuvering  to go ahead of us in that melee. They generously returned our compliments. Fortunately for us, the  altercations did not translate into full-blown road-rage. We didn’t have a twig to hit back the enemy,  had he decided to attack us. We were, however, told that there was nothing unique about the traffic jam ( as also the altercations) at this point; it happens about five to eight times a day. We had to keep the engine running all the time, inching forward at the slightest indication of opening.  In the meanwhile, the level-crossing gates, alternatively opened and closed at least two times before we could get the opportunity to cross over the rail-lines, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

There could be thousands of such level-crossings around the country, and if at every crossing the common citizens are confronted with the similar type of nightmarish experience  four or five times a day, then where are we heading to?  The tale of our miseries, however, was not to end here.

  A few kilometers on, crossing  a bridge over a canal, the road forks: one stretch going to  Palwal to join N.H-2 there and the other going to Delhi via Greater Noida and Noida.  The traffic transporting goods and people between the towns of the area, their hinterland and beyond merges at this god-forsaken place.  Here again we got stuck, and waited interminably, braving all sorts of jam related hazards, for more than two hours. By that time it was dark also. In the headlights of the moaning vehicles, on those two narrow winding roads-one leading to Palwal and the other to Greater Noida-  we could see endless line of all manner of passenger and commercial vehicles: buses, vans, tractors with trolleys attached, overloaded trucks, long vehicles, huge container platforms, tempos with passengers precariously hanging out from their open side-doors and, of course, cars with running engines all belching volumes of carbon-di-oxide in the atmosphere. The noise of blowing horns mingled with that of running engines and screaming drivers made for  a picture perfect scene of chaos. I had been on the wheel all the time. Reaching home at about 9.00P.M., I had fever and was laid-up for a fortnight. By the time recovered, I had already lost 12 workings days plus three holidays besides a few hundred rupees on medicines and footing the Doctor’s bill .

I am not a pessimist, but it sets me thinking.  What price the society has been paying since long in terms of lost man-hours, and economic and environmental costs for this lop-sided development where, in a predominantly agricultural country, the agricultural sector registers the GDP growth not even a quarter  that of the rest of other sectors; infra-structure is not strengthened before embarking upon huge industrial projects, and the national resources are wasted in producing luxury goods to cater the creature comforts of the elite few of the society? Diabolic materialism and crass consumerism are robbing people of quality life and tension-free living.

An army of handsomely paid writers write reams eulogizing this growth where the poor and the middle-class  India is forced to subsidize its rich and powerful to become still more rich and powerful.  With loads of trepidation, I hear car manufacturers, year after each year, reporting 20 to 35% increase over the preceding year in production of their various models. Even presuming that 30% of their product is exported, it leaves us with suffocating number of cars to choke beyond capacity, our already saturated roads. Even at a modest guesstimate, if there are only one thousand Secundrabad ,Dadri type choke-points in the entire country, through which at an average 1500 passenger vehicles with average passenger load of ten passengers pass through, each losing an hour in traffic jams occurring with a frequency of four times a day, the colossal loss in terms of man-hours only will be worked out in the region of several lakhs a day. Add to it the fuel cost of thousands of  idling  engines on all these choke points throughout the country   and hazards of atmospheric pollution caused thereby and you get a rough picture of mindless waste of manpower, money and material which could have easily avoided had they cared to develop and strengthen the infra-structure before executing industrial projects.  The government’s ill-planned development policies and activities have been causing huge sufferings  to the common man, besides entailing colossal waste of scarce national resources and manpower.  When should we expect the government to abandon this “putting the cart before the horse” policy and rearranged the priorities?”

 

 

                                                                                                                -SANJOG MAHESHWARI

 

  

POPULATION EXPLOSION

SANJOG MAHESHWARI

PEOPLE, POLITICS & POPULATION

-SANJOG MAHESHWARI

India has a meager 2.4% of the world surface area of 135.8 million Sq. meters. Yet, it has to support and sustain a whopping 16.8% of the world population. The population rise in India is so rapid and fast that from 238.4 million at the turn of the century, it scaled 1028 million mark in March 2001 and stands at staggering figure of around 1250 million now. As it hugely outstrips the severely limited natural resources, with an ever increasing margin, it has been entailing unbearable burden on the society. While, for the obvious reasons, the elite in the society enjoys immunity from the burden, the middle-class and the poor, both of urban and rural India, bear the burnt and continue to suffer in silence the miseries it entails in the form of severe scarcity of the limited natural resources and huge scramble for the scarce resources, uncontrolled spread of pandemic and epidemic diseases, malnutrition, starvation deaths, abject poverty, frequent visitations of natural calamities-droughts, floods etc. , unhygienic living conditions in slums and pigeon-hole flats, near absence of health and medical care, and such other maladies as are offshoots of environmental pollution, vagaries of weather, climate change, global warming and destruction of ecological balance.

Despite the fact that India was the first country to adopt a population policy, practically nothing has been done in terms of population control. As a result India is facing major crisis in the form of rapid depletion of its natural resources such as water, minerals, flora and fauna, fisheries etc. There is a fierce competition among the communities and sections of the population for the severely limited national resources such as land, forest and water which are being exploited to the hilt. Density of population is also responsible for the quick and uncontrolled spread of the recent scourge: pandemic H1N1 flu-the "swine-flu."

Population explosion in a country as mismanaged and as misgoverned as India is a sure recipe for disaster - akin to extending an open invitation to the ghost of Malthus- who, even otherwise, resurrects here, off and on, in the form of deaths and devastation in terror attacks, endemics, epidemic, wars, pestilence, diseases, floods, accidents, poverty and starvation driven suicides, murders, pre-mature deaths ( our maternal and infant mortality rate is just about the highest in the world) and many such other maladies. Already the human life seems to have become the cheapest commodity in our country.

( As early as in 18th century, the priest and philosopher Malthus enunciated a theory known as "Malthusian theory of Population." According to Malthus while the population increases by Geometric progression, the food-supply increases by Arithmetical progression which over the years, leaves the food-supply far short of the requirement of increased population, This phenomenon leads to leveling of the increased population to equate with the available food-supply through the inter-play of what he termed as " positive checks" in the form of natural calamities such as wars, pestilence, floods, droughts, epidemics, endemics, earthquakes etc. He, therefore, exhorted all the Christians and non-Christians to practice moral self-restrained to keep the population in check and termed it "Preventive Checks." He theorized that if the preventive checks are not exercised, the positive checks will automatically bring down the population by destroying the excess number. While the Industrial Revolution which brought about prosperity in the European nations in the subsequent years proved Malthus wrong in those countries and they out rightly rejected his theory branding it as predictions of the Prophet of Gloom, India incessantly suffered natural calamities in the form of drought, floods, earthquakes, epidemics etc that visited the country with alarming frequency. Poverty, hunger and starvation, the legacies of the past still persist refusing to leave the land; underlying the relevancy of Malthus so far as our country is concerned)

While the tycoons and the politicians are benefited by the growth of human capital, they whole-heartily welcome this non-depleting and ever-increasing human resource. To the former it guarantees cheap labour-force and an inflated number of gullible consumers and to the latter a swelled vote-bank comprising of certain sections of the society which specialize in multiplying their number for strengthening their political clout, promoting their community interests and political ambitions ,and power their vote-bank; as our democracy is all about number. And all that at the cost of the poor and the middle-class whose poverty and miseries get compounded with each addition of an Australia every year to our population.

The government sometimes shows-off that they are really concerned by occasionally distributing some low-key publicity material on family planning whereas the need of the hour is to formulate a firm, no-nonsense policy to enforce all sorts of conceivable deterring disincentives and penalties on the individuals and the families who do not observe small family norms preferably of “One-Child-One-Family” variety. While this is required to be done urgently and immediately, our ruling political class, in its anxiety to remain politically correct always with its vote-bank, feels shy of tackling the problem in any effective manner. Wary of offending the religious sensibilities of their minority (read Muslim) voters, the ruling class wants us to believe that a thing as simple as increased viewing of T.V. can do the trick and the Chinese are fools to resort to the harsh methods to control population. They want us to believe that better results can be achieved by a simple method- providing idiot-box to every home in the rural India!

This human liability- sadly regarded as asset- is, directly and indirectly, responsible for more than 6.0% of our total greenhouse gas emissions, for which world over we are being castigated as “the bad boy of climate change talks.” At Copenhagen they will surely force us to walk the talk and, indications are that we will not be able to do another Kamal Nath there.

Small family norms need to be enforced by meting out extremely harsh and deterring punishments, disincentives and penalties to the defaulters, just as in China. But are the ruling class politicians, who thrive and survive on the vote-bank politics and populist measures willing to do the needful in the larger national interests? While extra-ordinary maladies do require extra-ordinary measures, the politicians across the board can hardly be expected to put larger national interests on top of their own entrenched self interests that lie in fostering their vote-banks. .