Resuscitating the Indian economy: time for hard decisions

The Obituary published by The Economist (Farewell to Incredible India on June 9th) on the state of Indian economy was indeed a poignant reminder of what the absence of a true national leader and presence of deep-rooted coalition politics could virtually do..!

Revered industry veterans such as Murthy, Premji and others have raised serious concerns and have held 'policy paralysis' at the Centre responsible for the current state of affairs.

President in-waiting and the current FM  and our illustrious PM as well, both have not taken several cues from Moody, Fitch and domestic experts to show any gumption of taking hard decisions. 


To be fair to them, one would say that they always had Mamta and Jaya to pull down any well-intended moves.

It has been the RBI tune, sung by the men in power in recent months.With significant political pressure on RBI to keep on cutting interest rates, Subbarao has given it back to the FM in equal measure by refusing to cut rates in June 2012; since no actions have been taken by the Govt on supply side issues and to improve the fiscal situation. Quite a bold and correct measure by the Gov., one would have to say !

Simply put, these are the ten hard decisions / reforms which the Congress govt. needs to go after in order to revive the economy, bring it to speed and more importantly for them (Congress) to save face and remain in power post 2014:

1. Allow 51% FDI in Multi-brand retail


2. Exit Air-India immediately and liberalize the Aviation sector !


3. Promulgate a resolution to ensure Coal is made available to all existing power plants as per allocations and beyond if required


4. Bring Sea-ports, rail / road connectivity projects and capital investment projects under high-priority and hence a single window clearance.   


5. Introduce GST in the country with immediate effect. States opposing the same need to be shown a suitable carrot !!


6. Do not send wrong messages to the foreign investors by changing tax laws retrospectively. Remain investor friendly !


7. Fuel pricing: Reduce subsidies on Diesel with a clear time frame in mind and make petrol pricing truly free !


8. Review food subsidy and resurrect the PDS  


9. Do not mess with the already messed up Education system of India


10. Time to stop bailing out State after state..! UP, Bengal, Tamil Nadu !! Let the principle of Earn your bread be applicable to states as well !!!

This is more than a wish list, because it is a dream list and the dreams could just add on and on..!! But a die-hard optimistic and patriotic that most of us may be, we can only propose and continue to propose bright ideas. This is also because, it is difficult to see the dream of India as the third largest economy in possibly couple of decades, just melting before your very eyes because of dirty politics !


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Hassled Mumbaikars: Raw deal in the form of Sky Walks

The Mumbai Skywalk Project is a series of skyways for pedestrian use in the Mumbai Metropolitan region. The project was conceived to connect suburban railway stations or other high-concentration commercial areas with various heavily targeted destinations. 

The first skywalk was inaugurated in June 2008 from Bandra station to Kalanagar Junction stretching over 1.3 km. About 50 such sky walks were proposed by MMRDA with an average cost of Rs 12 Cr. MMRDA managed to recover part of this cost by hoisting ad hoardings. 

Till last year, 36 skywalks were completed, quite a few have been scrapped such as the Mahim east skywalk since it clashes with Dharavi redevelopment project. Now many skywalks which were built in a hurry may get demolished apparently because they obstruct the Monorail / metro projects. So much for urban planning !

For the uninformed citizens, the skywalk is a cheaper way for the government authorities to provide the hassled pedestrians of an alternative avenue to walk on the roads, which are not in the right condition to walk in the first place !. The reasons for the plight of the pavement and streets are numerous as one would guess; poor condition of the asphalt roads, encroachment by hawkers who now throng every nook and corner of the suburbs & city, car population sky rocketing with little space for road expansion (due to island limitation as well enncroachers)..etc

Why do I say that sky walk is a cheaper avenue ? Let me try and explain my point of view.

Today it is practically impossible to break the nexus of the hawkers, political parties and BMC and hence obstacle-free pavements are things of the distant past. Look at the enormous cost involved, both tangible and intangible costs, if one were to evict the encroachers from Mumbai roads and streets. There will be political outrage and υπροαρ, if parts of Dharavi or parts of the encroached parts of the Railway land at Bandra or parts of Mira-Bhayandar slums were to be demolished by BMC. The economic cost would be far lesser than the political cost !   

Cant help comparing BMC's predicament with that of the USA although it may sound a bit stretched here !. One knows that the Taliban is a creation of the US of A because of the various historic affiliations and ambitions that country harboured in the region. BMC (with its the long history of corrupt officials and corporators) has systematically allowed encroachments in the form of slums, commercial establishments to come up in the city and suburbs. 

Over a period of time, these encroachments have been regularised through a systematic regularisation fee, both accounted and unaccounted.Now when these regularised encroachers (Taliban) are coming in the way of development; lack of walking space, driving space and living space !!. The crises has grown manifold and still ballooning due to unabated & unchecked encroachments in all suburbs....!

Skywalk is just an illustration for driving the point of how authorities keep on giving a raw deal to tax payers in Mumbai. This project was proposed as a quick fix solution by the authorities to show that they care for the citizens of Mumbai in providing free walking and commuting space. However it has hardly been effective for pedestrians. Because most structures have either been put in the wrong place (ex. the skywalk which stretches on the SV Road at Lucky junction, it is empty at any peak hour of the day !) or it is simply not the right solution for the already hassled citizen of Mumbai. Just imagine a tired office-goer or a senior citizen is expected to walk a flight of 50 stairs and then walk for 350 m and then walk down  50 stairs again !!

Wonder when Mumbaikars will get anything close to Shanghai or Singapore or whatever the new CM claims to give !!