Viksit Bharat - A Dream or Reality?

While outlining his vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047 on Independence Day, the Prime Minister of India spoke about many things that will make up for achieving his vision of Viksit Bharat. One of these is Ease of Living. The word 'Ease' be itself has a vast canvas and can mean many different things to many people; and it must be discussed and debated till we find a reasonably common and agreed definition of the word. For instance, for a gangster the ease could mean that he or she is not pursued by law and is allowed to carry on the unlawful activities with ease; but for an ordinary law abiding citizen it the ease may mean entirely different and opposite. The government supposedly has taken many initiatives to provide this ease and these initiatives include legislative as well as executive actions. But the governance is not only about framing the laws and policies; but is also about how well and honestly these are implemented on ground. If one was to divide his or her own time spent into bigger blocks then one can say it comprises two major blocks one inside home and another outside home. As long as we have a government which does not unnecessarily intrude into the privacy of the citizens; then the ease with which one lives inside his or her own home is largely under the control of person itself; however outside of home either at the work place or at public places; the ease is also impacted by how others act and behave. Apart from the time spent at home and time spent at work; a significant amount of time is spent in commuting and on an average in any big city including metropolitan cities this time spent in commuting can be as high as 20 - 30% of the time spent out of home. This is a significant chunk of time and I am sure that policy makers must be or should be really concerned about how make life easy for the people when they are commuting. Certainly the policy makers are burning midnight oil in addressing these concerns and building roads, flyovers, underpasses, metro rail networks, RRTS, BRTs etc. at breakneck speed with the consultants of all hues providing critical management and thought leadership support to this trillion dollar ($) infrastructure dream. Certainly there is quite an ease among those who are giving the contracts, getting the contracts, and providing crucial advisory support as all these involves getting hefty commissions, making deals, and earning hefty advisory fees; the question that every ordinary citizen must ask is that has any of these has ever resulted in making commuting hassle free, fast, and safe? While I request the readers to this post to share their experiences, I am tempted to share mine with what I see around me. Though I have not travelled much globally but outside India to whatever countries and cities I have travelled; I could easily commute between places by walking and using public transport. Going of my own; I hardly felt any need of engaging any private form of transport and could easily carried two suitcases with me. This even included cities in the countries which are behind India but yet in any of those cities one could easily walk, cross roads, take buses or metro without being hassled or fearing for a broken limb. Can we take walking or cycling as a preferred mode of commuting without fearing of a broken limb or running for life because some maniac behind the wheel is honking and coming for your life or someone is making a guest appearance from wrong side? I asked these questions to the ministry of urban development, self governance etc. in the Government of Rajasthan about 2 years ago and I have still not received any reply from them. This was about the city of Jaipur which in past boasted for a very pedestrian friendly infrastructure in terms of wide tree lined footpaths. I have spent my childhood seeing foreign tourist walking around Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and clicking photographs. But sadly they can not do it any more and if one dares to walk; one has to be an athlete because you may need the capabilities of running and jumping (long and high both); and now one can add swimming too. Forget about a person with disabilities; even for a healthy person there is not even a single stretch of road where one can safely walk with ease without fearing for being run over by man, machine, and mammal. Yes I am adding mammal to the list because it truly a unique India phenomena where there is no city that does not have freely and randomly moving mammals with ease along with humans; despite even Supreme Court of India saying that these mammals have no place or business of being on roads; yet the problem remains where it is and widening of roads in name of infrastructure development and improving traffic; and narrowing of footpath to make space for widening of roads has only made more space available for these stray mammals to squat on roads. It is a clear failure of policy makers and I will write as to why it is at some other time or in response to any comment on my post but it is another story that I also asked the Government of Rajasthan as to why there are so many stray cattle on the road making the place dirty and stinky specially in a state which has tourism as one of the major industry and the tourists are certainly not expecting to see some bull dancing in the dark. Surprisingly the government replied this time with very proudly proclaiming that as per Supreme Court ruling the stray dogs can not be removed from their location. The great IAS officer who signed on the reply and supposedly from the most elite class did not understand even the difference between cattle and dog. Delhi NCR has seen a lot of flyovers, underpasses, widening of roads etc. since last so many decades but has any of these been able to improve the ease of commuting? Widening of roads has only resulted in people driving in wrong lanes, suddenly jumping the lane; and thus slowing the traffic and creating snarls. In first place people do not even understand the difference in line and lane; and secondly the government has all the money to widen the roads but has nothing left to mark the lanes properly. Is it not a frequent site to see on the crossings people driving in wrong lanes and then turning suddenly from left to right and right to left and in doing so they only slow down the movement and create snarls. There are examples galore; take for instance the entry point of newly built Dwarka Expressway from Mahipalpur side in Delhi; entry exit points on newly built Delhi Mumbai Expressway from Rajiv Chowk till Sohna etc. All are without any thoughts or are after thoughts and instead of easing the flow of traffic in fact have now become a new choke points. Poor planning; poor design; pathetically poor third rate construction etc. in our infrastructure projects has not provided any ease in commuting but has made commuting dangerous and unsafe. For instance on about 17 KM long corridor on this Delhi Mumbai Expressway staring from Rajiv Chowk in Gurgaon and ending at Sohna; there is hardly any thought or place where a person walking can cross the road and go on other side. People jumping over three or four feet high barriers and fences in face of fast moving traffic is a common site and this certainly is not the ease. I fact the Olympic selection committee members selecting athlete should rather spend time on seeing how people run and jump crossing the roads; may be they can get some medal winners this way than in doing their selection trials in stadiums. The examples of construction of public infrastructure projects that are completely useless or no one uses them are several and are all around us. For instance there are bus shelters built on Golf Course Extension road in Gurgaon but there is no bus service, there water ATMs but there is no water, there are escalators and lifts at some of the pedestrian crossings but these do not function, at some place there is shaft for lift but there is no lift. First phase of Smart City mission is over and cities have spent 1000s of crores on various projects but it just a matter of fact that no one knows as to in what manner the cities have become smart? Broken roads, stray cattle, piles of garbage, stink, no place to walk, missing road signages, unruly noisy traffic, flooded drains, pathetically poor quality of public infrastructure, and above all missing or most pathetic standards of governance are all hall mark of our system and certainly do not add even a bit to ease of living. Even though the intent may be right but the execution is either pathetically poor or is with corrupt intent. Infrastructure projects are conceived to not to provide any ease to the people or solve problem but are designed to earn commissions. Dedicated corridor from Rajiv Chowk till Sohna connecting with Delhi Mumbai Expressway has not made life any easy for the people who are living on Sohna Road in Gurgaon (in fact has made it even worse) but certainly has raised the property prices in Sohna and beyond. One can see flurry of construction activities taking place for which builders may have bought land much earlier. The builders are just the front; real owners are the politicians and bureaucrats who have planned such a project that would only lead to rise in real estate prices and not solve any problem and provide any ease of living. Why is that no investment is being made in improving the governance; improving the traffic management; improving the law enforcement; improving the disaster management response; etc. It can be done at a much lower cost and resource consumption; leaving surplus resources for education and healthcare but improving governance and enforcing the rule of law is perhaps the last on the list of any government, policy maker, executive administration, advisors, etc. because there no kick backs, commissions, fat advisory fees etc. in any of these. Intent alone sadly may not be enough to reach to Viksit Bharat Dream which should hopefully not remain only a dream by 2047. India needs a comprehensively different vision and will to do.