A tale of two cities by CSE, New Delhi

I could not resist to relay story by CSE, New Delhi worth reading by fellow planners, Thanks to them..

EDITORIAL: A tale of two cities 
by Sunita Narain
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I travelled to two different cities in two different states last week—Indore and Guwahati. I came back with images identified by common distinctions: piles of garbage and glitzy new shopping malls. Is this our vision of urban development? There is no question that cities are imploding; growth is happening faster than we ever imagined. Construction is booming and expansion is gobbling agricultural land.

But the quality of life is no better. In most parts there is traffic, dust, air pollution and most of all the chaos of unplanned growth. Road expansion is eating up lines of shady trees—in Guwahati I saw the most majestic trees hacked down mercilessly. The city’s lungs are going, and so are its sponges, as waterbodies are making way for buildings. In Indore its residents will tell you that the names of the colonies are the names of the lakes they are built on. In Guwahati, the airport has been built by killing the grand Deepor beel. First a road was built (obviously without culverts to channelise the water), then as the waterbody died, it was filled to undertake new construction. This year, as always, Guwahati airport was flooded and air traffic disrupted.

The two cities are different ecosystems, so they should have had different water and waste issues. One is located in the relatively dry Malwa plateau and the other in the high-rainfall region on the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra. But both cities have acute water stress, even as rain leads to swamping of cities, disrupting life and destroying property. Both cities have no water culture. Both are drowning in their waste.

Indore, because of its location, had a rich tradition of lakes. Rain water was harvested and stored in structures, which recharged groundwater. Then, in 1977, the city brought Narmada water from some 110 km to the city. Indore should have had enough to drink and to swim. But 35 years later, the water has still not reached all distribution pipelines. Over 50 per cent of the 172 million litres per day of water it sources is lost in distribution, which means there is far more costs but far less water to supply. The city water utility has no money to repair and extend its water system. It spends all it has and more in just electricity costs of bringing the water. Politicians are vying with each other to bring the water from the Maheshwar dam. The recent jal samadhi by the Maheshwar dam-displaced has met with enormous anger from Indore’s power elite. They say they need the dam’s water at all costs. They do not care if the people, whose land has been submerged by the dam, have not received compensation or been resettled.

The same power elite never demand systems to deal with the sewage they flush out of their homes. In Indore, the sewage system was constructed in 1936 at the time of the Holkars. Independent Indore has added to it insignificantly. The bulk of the sewage pours into its rivers, Khan and Saraswati, and Piliyakhal Nullah, untreated. It forgets that the Khan pollutes the Kshipra; the main water source of the neighbour, Ujjain.

Guwahati is no different. When I went in early October, floods were still ravaging the city. This was the third pulse of flooding, which began in early June. Residents explained that the intensity and duration of floods had made life impossibly difficult. They also spoke of desperate water shortages in this region of plenty. Worse, life-giving water is now the cause of diseases—death by dengue fever was top news in Guwahati.

This is when both cities have options to do things differently. They are yet to build all their homes, roads and water and sewage systems. They can execute a plan, which allows them to modernise but with quality of life intact and even better. This requires not to want to grow in the way Delhi, Mumbai or any other “old-growth” city has.

For instance, they should not repeat the mistake of allowing fleets of cars to take over their roads. Indore was an enlightened city to plan for a bus-based future. Some years ago it invested in new buses, rationalised routes, created systems for efficient operation and put GPS in place to track and inform customers. Now cost of bus fuel is up, fares have not been revised and buses are losers. Still the majority of the city population rides or walks, even though the city’s footpaths are long gone. Indore is now building a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor. It has a many foreign and Indian consultants to design the system but the people of Indore have no idea what is being proposed and why BRT is important. So they already hate it.

Guwahati’s footpaths are gone as well, taken over by mounds of garbage. The city has taken the route of its bigger cousins. It has put the task of garbage disposal out to a concessionaire, who, it hopes, will sweep the city clean. It does not. Instead, Guwahati could collect, segregate and compost garbage at the household level. It could reserve areas in colonies for environmental services. This way it would not have to first collect and then transport the waste. It would not have to live in filth.

In the end Indore and Guwahati will be the creations of their people. The only question is whether they will be dreams or nightmares. 

You can post your comments on this editorial online at http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/tale-two-cities

Assertion towards a Secular State

Electoral Politics has time and again have evoked the divisionary practice of claiming India desired to be a 'Hindu Nation'. The BJP though much improvised than its earlier party objectives today concentrates more on the development issues. This must prove that India even though has see communal politics remain extremly tied up with its secular credentials. Though the party in power such as in Gujarat state in all their activities symbolised and used representation by and large dipicting their desire to become a Hindu' centric state government. The use of Kalash (to mark Golden Jublee) and naming of government schemes all emerged from textbook referring to a particular culture. Even Ahmedabad for its projection as a city lost its traditional cultural land marks to the new to derecognise the its history.

Secularism to right wingers have been a hoax call by those who are non-worshippers remain still orthodox in their thinking about the religious paradox.  Ultimately its the secular politics which got wide acceptence in very rightly tilted political parties. The experiments so called with the right wing parties by the organisation claiming to representing the right wing ideologies failed to check the development politics and remodified version of 'Garbi Hatao' with 'Kalyan Melas' of present governments. 

Though the divisionary politics are still being played by all the political parties, the essence of India remains in accepting the people at its face value not from their background. This is good for young India who would be looking forward to see things from being Indian not belong to A, B or C group. Do we have any sureity in assigning the belief that the right wing parties may not start again with communal politics? I belive little their action in past years show that they would not follow shadow game of communal divisions, initiated by the Britishers against the Indian people post 1857. The policy of 'Divide and Rule' continues even with the political parties.

Markandey Katju, esteemed ex supreme court judge mentions following description of Secularism,
'Secularism does not mean that one cannot practise one’s religion. Secularism means that religion is a private affair unconnected with the state, which will have no religion.'
(Markandey Katju is a retired judge of the Supreme Court and Chairperson of the Press Council of India)

But we also know the Govts in Gujarat, MP and Chhattisgarh has different religion, which is Secular.

Shashikant

Distribute Goodies to Electorate and get votes

Elections are too far since the it has not been announced in Gujarat or in other parts of country. The state parties are busy distributing goodies (pots, cycle, vollyballs, bags etc) to the people to lure them to votes. This is apart from the hosts of Garib Kalyan Melas which allowed the state (no the political master) to distribute from his able hands. With all the melas, we may not believe that we are living in developed state. The state which host Vibrant Gujarat and boasts of double digit growth is not shying away from accepting the poverty in the state and makes sure the identified poor by the party workers gets the goodies.

The days of simple political gimmicks have taken over by presenting doles to the eligible voters, even the opposition congress is not behind they have been making promises to give home, laptops, and other articles to their loyal voters. Money can buy anything, Is that the mantra for parties to come to power. Shameless people who would be enticed by the offers cannot resist and why should they, given the horrible state of public life with ever increasing prices. The responsibilities are given to center for the state's apathy and state takes pride in conducting the campaign for general election (which is two years away!!). Is it well timed or BJP is expecting early elections in state.

One thing is common the nature of political class has not been changing, the world may look at India from the pretext of developing nation, the country does not want to claim any status. The political class wants the nation to remain backward and not questioning on their intention, so what if some goods are distributed, poor fellow do they have any questions or doubt about their governments. Its good that they sleep over the state of affairs in state, the media might shell out some news for them to draw some opinion.

The festive season in country has just started with arrival of Ganesha, the political parties would and are exploiting to bring home their points, and so is ideological warfare claiming to be with people, praying to god to save the nation. Thats too much to accept the fate of people without their participation, else let them glue to that 'idiot box'.

Electoral agents would be now hacking the accounts of the individuals lottering on cyberspace for more data on youth behaviour setting campaign (digital and virtual). Let some party also distribute online gaming tools to youngistan to play with political masters. The net savvy politicians have even lot left medium to be free, they have jumped on passing judgements on the issues even those which are pending in courts, they rightly feel the best judge are the people and its now easy to bribe them. Ganesha says, You must be fool enough to discuss all these, the jokers in the game know when to play, which may spoil the opposition. People must be heard not to hate but to work.

Pre-conditioning for Election: Early risers

Strange Indian Politics have been observed during last six months, national parties preparing seriously for elections schedule well two years from now! the confidence of the parties seems to be little on accepting the challenge at the right time. The spending on elections or related propaganda materials are on full swing. This is a shift from the politics of yesterdays in past when few months before election political parties would come and work for elections.

The state elections are here and so is the choice for National elections, there is chance for early risers to fatigue out once the national election approaches or Is our national schemes of development targets run election to election, (we might not have five years plan then!!). Let planners work under leadership of PM (elected) and party president in power to plan for country. The state level CMs can also have plan to fight elections from day one once they get elected, (since that seems to be reality) which would make really interesting to be very objective.

The state elections such as in Gujarat is perceived to be mini elections or referendem on the personality or cult politics shaped by leading national parties. Development debates take back step against the managerial and operational issues. Fight along with media lobbies carries forward the warring parties to the people. Opinion makers are brought and sold via media to facilitates electors mind, though suitable marketing techniques are also used to bring home the points.

Public service or working for the larger masses goals of the politicians have transformed into the power - capturing strategies typically corporatization of Indian political system. A series of corporate efforts are made to achieve the targets set by the national committiees, do we need to confirm with democratic setup of parties. Democracy if taken for granted as conceived by early learders through our contitution has recieved its setback recently. Why do not we think to encourage or change the system (may be presidential form ) to accept the reality thrown by globalisation of Indian politics. We are aping the west (now extreme west, USA) for political behaviour.

Least the behaviour of politicians is coming up like fighting WWF sportsmen, with thumping of chest with war cry makes the politics helarious with one challenging others to take the ring and have fight (though political). Ideological differences are not accepted but abused and scolded openly against the political differences. The media is happy to receive 24 hours content and politicians at the national and state levels are eager to supply the bites required to hoodwink the governance over the political ideologies. The character of nation as enshrined in constitution suffers serious setback.