Thursday, May 19, 2011

No Country For Old Men

The reason to write this specific blog starts from second paragraph. But before that, let me have a little introduction of our country and what we are doing today. Indiaaah..  has more than one billion population and since several months, it has been hit by various cyclone, typhoon with name CWG Scam, 2G Scam, Adarsh Scam, WikiLeaks about the paying bribe to MP and the list continues. Plus someone has done witchcraft to our country, as a result of witch the country has been consistently facing inflation of more than 15% which has arm twisted the common man. Government has no clue how to tackle all these problems. The rate at which our country is growing, there are several needs which has to be fulfilled in near future. It seems our government is more into signing treaties and all, but there are some core issues which need to be addressed quickly which gonna have a really big impact with the growth of country.

Volume - I, Chapter 1 (Last June 2010)
In last one year couple of times i visited my hometown. I prefer train to reach my native place. So i am a frequent customer of Indian Railways. Thanks to British, they have given something precious (Remember Gollum in Lord Of the Ring) to indian people. It happened to visit a near by place (other town) which is near to my hometown by Indian constructed road. The place is very old (At least 100 years old) and is around 80Km from my hometown. It toolk almost 3 hours for just to reach the place using a private hired taxi. The entire road was bumpy, I could see big pits on the main road which is big enough to swallow a Jeep size vehicle. At a place the road is so narrow that the driver applied his special skill to cross the road. All the **** slang were in my mind for the authorities who has been assigned for the administration of the district (which has population even less than population of Bangalore city) while travelling on that road. Then I realized why Odisha (my state) is considered as such a backward. Until that I always avoided thinking something de-motivational talks about it (Odisha). Just few thoughts rolled in my mind, even though I was travelling in a private taxi  in that pathetic road, my backbone was already started giving problem. Just imagine the condition of a person using the public transport system with age old vehicle without any safety feature and other advanced technologies. How she must be suffering to cross this 80km. Also I get to know that because of this road condition, very few bus services is available between the towns. People hire cabs just to travel 80, 100kms as the bus service is so poor. This is not about comfort and luxury when someone hires taxi instead of using public transport, it became a need for a common traveler. As the transportation system is so pathetic, It is forcing others to use a private service which is burning pocket (also indirectly burning extra petrol which is burden on countries import of oil plus pollution in the environment which no-one thinks about it). This is the story of one man. Just think about thousand of traveler is doing the same, the scale of impact is quiet huge. This all could have been avoided if better roads and public transportation service had been available.

Volume I, Chapter 2 (1st January 2011)
We (me and 2 of my friends) hired a taxi and started on 1st January morning around 8'O clock from Bangalore city to have a blast at Pondicherry (Pondy). We left behind B'lore in few minutes after crossing electronic city flyover which is considered as one of the longest flyover in Asia. The journey was going smooth in national highway (B'lore to Chennai). We have paid more than Rs.200 as toll fees with in 80km of distance. (In every 20/30km there is a toll gate to collect money for the vehicle which is passing through). I just thought government is announcing thousand million rupees for just construction of highway which is a tax money collected from public. Again for using the road, they are collecting such a huge toll fees !!! After some distance we took a diversion to reach Pondy which happens to be not a national highway. The road was in pathetic state, pits all over, narrow, no direction and ..... It took almost 6 hours just to cross 200km distance which was a horrible experience. We were playing a circus inside the taxi as it was bumping and jumping in the road. Then I realized, it is not just odisha, but Tamil Nadu is equally poor. Be it Odisha or TN, the officers are equally corrupt when it comes to some developmental work. By the time we reached Pondy, we hardly had any energy to celebrate the new year. Thanks to all the responsible authority to make this journey so delightful.

Volume I, Chapter 3 (April 2011)
As i mentioned earlier, I prefer traveling in train rather than flight or buses. I managed to get a sleeper class ticket in tatkal on scorching summer of april 2011. Just before a day of my journey, it started raining heavily. I was happy as next day I have to travel through train and this rain would at least would help in balancing the temperature in my full day journey. I reached the station early morning to catch my train which was suppose to be starting at 8:30 AM. It was cloudy and i was happy for a cool journey in sleeper class in this pleasant climate. But whole happiness was ruined when i entered the bogie. It was filled with water (b'coz of last night rain). I went and asked one Rly police officer for a help (to call some railway cleaning people to get rid of water), but it was of no help. And in that water filled bogie I managed to park my luggage and went to the top berth and slept for 2 3 hours in the morning. It was almost 12 PM, I got up from my upper berth and came down to sit for sometime. I heard some noise of dog barking. I could not understand from where the noise is coming from in the moving train. When observed carefully,  I saw one person has packed four dogs in carton and kept under the lower berth. It was fun, non of the TTE observed. And the dogs were unaware of the fact that they have to make some 2000km travel in that closed carton. At night 12'O clock in the train, I was asleep, suddenly some cigar smoke woke me up. There was a noise, I was wondering whether the train is stationed in some station, but it was moving. I got up from my berth, and went towards the main door. I saw a   young guy was shouting with all possible D.K.Bose language in his phone with someone. He was in high voltage having a cigar in his hand whose smoke woke me up. From his loud conversation, I guessed some unknown person called his girlfriend over phone and told that this guy is double-crossing  her which led to some tension between them. This guy was upset over it and having all discussion over the phone. There were some old ladies were sitting near by in that smoke but no one was protesting. I checked for some guard who can help me out, but there was not even a single guard in the entire train carrying thousands of passenger. I went to toilet to relieve myself, it was so nasty, hard to explain. Thousands of such trains are there in india, where millions of passenger travels across the country. But there is no basic facilities is being properly provided by the railways. Our Didi (Ms.Mamta Banerjee) is busy in campaigning in West Bengal election for sonar manush, but she forgot her basic responsibility of railway ministry. As I have been travelling in train since a long time, the railway is at its worst service in Didi's regime. Didi wants both West Bengal and Railway ministry to be managed by her. Shame on such leaders who can't take the basic responsibility to manage such a huge ministry. I am not a big fan of Lalu, but yeah, he was the best Railway minister so far I have seen (talking in perspective of changes and facilities he had brought for the commuters) but Didi made no mistake to push the railway to 10 years back.

Volume 2, Chapter 1 (My Observations)
Indiaaah..  has more than one billion population, that means enormous power and also it means we need proper food security as well as energy security. There is no lack in food production, but the supply chain management has lot of problem which triggers artificial shortages. Last year we wasted lot of food grain as there was no proper storage facilities available. Roads are lifeline for any country to develop. If  compared with human body, if your blood supply lines are not proper then you are life becomes miserable. Similarly, the country needs proper roads to address many problems in one go. Its sad to say that even after 60 years of independence we even don't have roads which connects every districts. Only 2% of total road is highway in our country. Proper roads helps in reduction of fuel consumption by vehicles which indirectly benefits country economy as well as environment friendly. Goods can reach on time if there is proper roads available. It also reduces the journey time of individual from one place to other which otherwise is waste of time. If villages are connected to proper roads, then villagers can access better facilities which improvise the living standard and helps in bridging the gap between urban and rural life. Teachers can go to schools in villages which would boost literacy. 
Same is the case with food and energy security. Let me start with water, most of people in india does not have proper water to clean drinking water. Rivers are polluted big time. Billions of rupee being pumped to clean the rivers with zero outcome. We are no shortage of rain. Proper rain water harvesting plan, tough compliance for new infrastructure where loss can be minimized and boost to plantation. This would help in maintaining ground water level at optimum level to secure our future. Trees are important in many ways. It helps in solving many problem directly or indirectly. It maintains environment temperature at normal level, it also helps in reducing soil erosion, water level where trees exist seen to be at good. As mentioned we are not lacking in food production, but to cater the demand in coming days, we need to change the style. Farmers get water using age old canals techniques from rivers where there is a maximum loss of water occurs. It has properly built canals using pipes which minimizes the water loss. Advance technique need to be used all across the country. Also 40% of the electricity produced in India is lost in transmission. This could light lakhs of villages which are deprived of. We need smart management of electricity too.
Creating the very basic infrastructure instead of big master plans can be helpful in achieving big goals set by the government. As these basic infrastructure is the pillar for all other needs of a human being, making them as strong pillar would help in building strong and big house.