3/4/2015 Budget fantasy and ground reality ­ The Hindu

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Budget fantasy and ground reality

Gautam BhatiaOnce while waiting in line at the railway station in Lucknow, I was approached by a tout who said he could get me adiscounted train ticket on the Handicapped quota. All I had to do was limp in front of the train conductor. Despite myprotest that I didn’t have a handicap, he insisted he had gotten many such tickets, and that both of us would benefitfrom the deal.

The railway Budget obviously can’t account for such petty corruption; instead it announces — with much fanfare — itstechnological hopes for the new century: 1,200 kilometres of new track, 17,000 bio­toilets, surveillance cameras inladies’ compartments, wheelchairs for senior citizens, wi­fi and mobile charging facilities at stations. While all thesesuggest greater convenience to its users, there is little by way of serious train engineering advance.

Basic issues

The Indian rail network is the fourth largest in the world. However, much of it was built by the British, with only a fifthof additional track being added after Independence. Since then however, the number of passengers has increased sevenfold. And although much of the system has been upgraded, from steam to diesel and electric power, rail technologyremains antiquated and frozen in a 19th century time warp.

The most basic industrial design has created throughout the world an efficient functioning train compartment in lightsteel, with wide panoramic windows and comfortable seating and storage. The Indian train, by contrast, is aramshackle vessel of heavy gauge clanking steel that raises dust along the countryside, with people hanging on doorsand others perched on the roof. Train transport is a symbol of an unmanageable commuting demand in anoverpopulated country — a place where hygiene, comfort, safety standards, or luxury rarely enter the requirements ofordinary travel.

Instead of addressing these basic issues, the Budget promises either petty electronic conveniences or outlandishambitions: bullet trains and increased speeds of 200 kmph on long distance corridors. Are these even possible in acountry where every inch of land in the rural areas is thickly populated, as is often noted in grim headlines: Sixlabourers crushed on rail track off Patna?

How then do you introduce new ideas into a system that must move 13 million passengers every day, without bringingthe system to a halt? Is there some other form of high speed transport for us, something between the steam engine andthe bullet train, perhaps a form of air dynamic or underground service, waiting to be invented? In a country wherepopulation densities and sheer numbers decide the fate of most public enterprises, the railways is only one of the manydepartments that is defeated by the statistics.

Belief and reality

The defeat shows in the larger Budget itself, and its aimless drift into generalities. Its primary problem is thecombination — an unsure mix of grand optimism and cautious reality. Beyond the standard address of poverty,inflation, rural development, farm sector and industrial growth, the swell of monumental thinking lifts the FinanceMinister’s rhetoric with false effervescence into unrealised areas: the world of yet unbuilt infrastructure, theexperiment with international standard highways, high­speed rail, new cities, shipbuilding and ports. Without aprevious record in any of these areas, no one can question his motives, only his ambition. The Budget becomes anexercise in building belief.

Obviously then, such false belief needs to be tutored by ground reality. Even Arun Jaitley’s rural thrust seems to bemisdirected in promoting useless aspiration. No longer the quiet low­lying mud dwellings of the 1960s and 1970s, theurbanisation of rural clusters has led to a serious decline in village life. Most villages are now brick­walled slumswithout drainage, water supply or ventilation and closely resemble their decrepit city cousins. The current migrationfrom village to city is therefore from one slum to another, and calls for government investment in serious technicalupgrade in health, sanitation and home construction technology, rather than mere electrification.

City and village

When little remains of rural India, obviously a return to the Gandhian model is impossible. And any attempts atglobalised industrial corridors will quickly do away with the last vestiges of village life. The unusually vast expense onphysical infrastructure needs to be reviewed in light of available technology and resources. Nehru’s India may haverequired the physical infrastructure of connection to the big city, but given the current dissatisfaction with rural lifeand failed agriculture practices, the building of new roads will merely hasten the migration to the city.

In taking the city to the village, the government is moreover committing the larger sin of cultural homogeneity. Twodecades earlier it was possible to distinguish the city from the village; today, both are similarly congested ramshackleslums. A decade earlier, it was possible to tell apart cities from each other: Delhi, a Colonial garden suburb, Mumbai, amarine town, Allahabad, a cantonment sprawl, Jaipur, a sandstone citadel. Every one of them is now condemned to aparasitic sameness. Cities, all cities, now have something of the character of war, a charged theatrical spectacle, anincomplete stage­set of decaying structures, perpetually smoking, smouldering and choking. Condemned to the mantra

3/4/2015 Budget fantasy and ground reality ­ The Hindu

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of growth at any cost, the Budget makes no provisions for improving current life, nothing on urban transport, nothingon pollution, nothing on the country’s dead rivers ….

In such a denuded setting, it’s hard to trust a government perpetually sounding the horn of global aspirations: 14,000crore on roads, 10,000 crore on rail, 70,000 crore increase in infrastructure, another 25,000 crore on RuralInfrastructure Development Fund for schools and medical facilities in the rural areas. Impressive statistics aside, thefailure of many such previous programmes in villages should lead the government down an altogether different, whollyunconventional, path. Without incurring undue expense on the construction of village schools — already withoutteachers and toilet facilities — a more inventive home schooling programme may be the answer, where the physicalconnectivity of roads and the impossibly long distances between school and home are replaced by the Internetclassroom.

Making innovation work

Of the 4.6 million kilometres of roads in India, only half are paved. Is this an indicator of work to be done, or reason tosearch for alternative forms of transport? More than ever, the government’s new Innovation Mission needs to bedirected to difficult Indian social, cultural, and economic situations, transporting 18th century living patterns directlyinto the 21st century. Where innovative ideas can work is in the absence of confining conventional frameworks. Whenrural connectivity can be achieved through the computer or the innovation of local transport to traditional markets, theconnection of villages across four­lane highways is nothing but a misappropriation of funds.

If the success of the ‘Make in India’ programme is to be linked to the Prime Minister’s new approach to promotingalternatives in solar and wind energy, the production of electric cars, biotechnology, etc. then the proposed emphasison innovation must begin by first questioning all conventional wisdom. Is there a benefit to long­term expenditure ifthe project doesn’t offer any long­term advantage? If more cars, more buses, more people will make a road systemobsolete in 10 years, could a more novel approach to movement be tried? Could the tourism budget be directed atinnovative planning rather than following international hotel models? Indeed, should the government attempt amixed­use city without roads and cars, if it doesn’t have a solution to the current polluted city?

With a vast range of unique urban, rural, social, engineering situations, the Indian state and its supporting privateentrepreneurial partner have stood on the sidelines for half a century and watched helplessly as others race across thefinish line. Now, the Modi government offers a new perspective: if we are second rate, the important thing is to achieve,even if by borrowed means. All the various models of infrastructure — highways, bullet trains, smart cities, BRTs —have been tested long enough in China, Japan, Canada, Colombia and elsewhere to make them foolproof applicationsin India. What stands in the way is the manageable hurdle of culture, tradition and some foreign resources. And a hardsell to some angry farmers whose livelihood is to be whisked away from beneath their feet.

At one time, India’s poverty — and fabled riches — defined its relationship with the world. Now, its second rate, copycatstatus will make it a truly global player.

(Gautam Bhatia is an architect and sculptor.)

When rural connectivity can be achieved through the computer or the innovation of local transportto traditional markets, the connection of villages across four­lane highways is nothing but amisappropriation of funds.

Beyond the standard address of poverty, farm sector and industrial growth, the swell ofmonumental thinking lifts the Budget’s rhetoric with false effervescence into unrealised areas: theworld of yet unbuilt infrastructure, the experiment with international standard highways, high­speed rail, new cities, shipbuilding and ports