Poverty creation - Maharashtra ishtyle

Ref dost-mittar #24

[harimou:

Jairam Ramesh is not a communist but one of the consistent supporters of reform. You should read the column he used to write for India Today. He supported most of the NDA govt.`s economic policies even when he was in the opposition.]

Jairam Ramesh is indeed a socialist/Crypto-Communist in the Jawaharlal Nehru mode. He made the claim that the Congress Party was responsible for the Golden Quadrilateral and for the North-South and East-West Corridor 4-lane highway projects because -- get this -- the bill authorizing the establishment of the National Highway Authority of India was passed when the Congress was in power. He conveniently forgot the fact that for years, the NHAI merely hired bureaucrats (probably fulfilling the mandate to hire SC/ST/BC/MBC/OBC candidates) and then sat with its collective thumbs up its collective @rse. He also made the claim that the telecom revolution under the BJP rule was merely due to advances in technology -- as if, under 50+ years of Congress misrule, they had exploited the then existing technology and provided 100 million landline connections! He made an appearance on ``The Big Fight`` a couple of years ago and claimed that the failure of India to advance farther was merely because of the failure of India to consume 35 million tons of steel annually during the 1980s -- when the Congress had been in power except for 18 months. He conveniently forgot that steel at that time was not allowed new private investment/ownership, Tata Steel (TISCO) was being strangled by Nehruvian controls, the 35 million ton target was set in a five-year plan and its failure is indeed a failure of the plan, not to mention that the government did not have the money to build an additional 25+ million ton capacity to reach that 35 million ton goal, that there isn`t enough water to wash the bloody coal, there weren`t enough railway wagons nor track capacity to move the iron ore, coal/coke and limestone needed to make steel, etc., etc., etc.

Do not make the mistake of confusing being articulate with being intelligent. Jairam Ramesh is articulate. He appeals to the TamBrahms as he is one of them. I am surprised he appeals to you sufficiently for you to agree with him.

``This is what happens when people unqualified to run a railway station have delusions that they can run modern airports. ``

we should outsource some things to pakistan, like highways, cricket and airports. they are good at it.

Dost-mitter,

There is still hope for you - but that commie and dhimmi mentality due to nehruvian
training shows up now and then.
``however pricing should be set so that the first few daily buckets of water are
practically free for everyone``

You claim to be a economist - should you not factor in. how you are going to monitor
how many buckets everyone gets daily ? - will you have people standing near the
public tap counting number of buckets people will get ?

There is enough water in India - the problem is in storage and distribution
because of govt interference in pricing. Let there be competition and water
will be priced and distributed fairly and water will be available to all people.
If we can get 5 litre of clean water to every family for a rupee the number of
water borne diseases and illness can be reduced tremendously and infant
mortality will come down rapidly.

Also why does the Govt have to interfere in number of children ?

Regards,

Uma,

Where are you? what is your take so far?
Aaj ks taaja kabar....

State govt stops free power to farmers
By: Agencies
May 10, 2005

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In view of the acute power shortage in the state, the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra today decided to discontinue its pre-poll promise of providing free power to farmers.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced this after a state cabinet meeting this afternoon.

He, however, said that the government would provide subsidised power to the farmers and reimburse Rs 1,200 crore subsidy bill every year to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board.

The Sushilkumar Shinde government, on the eve of the Assembly elections in July last year, had announced free power to over 2.5 million agricultural pumps in Maharashtra.

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Also, during elections they promised regularisation of slums upto year 2000 (from 1996).

Re: # 26

we should outsource some things to pakistan, like highways, cricket and airports. they are good at it.


...Uh huh.NO.They are not good at it.These highways were built by Daewoo and under korean supervision.Remember what happened to Daewoo?.They went bankrupt as a result.And daewoo thought they`ll recoup their investment in pak`s roads by selling cars!.Those were the days!.Let`s take a look at them highways in another five years.We(TATA) own Daewoo trucks as a result.Hyundai was smart.They wouldn`t piss in pak.They`re selling about 250,000 plus cars a year in india alone now.Smart.

#29 mirchi, true, but look, pakis have nice highway, (who cares how they got it done?)whereas all you have to be proud of is a small 70 mile strip from panvel to shivaji nagar to show for, and the rest-stop vada-pav. oh i forgot the ``fly-overs`` in bombay.. no shit, at the end of every fly-over is a mess of super-size pot-holes. so a small 15-mile journy from seepz to downtown can take 3 hours.

#29 by cayenne
“Hyundai was smart.They wouldn`t piss in pak”

Mirchi, try to read stuff from non-RSS web sites too.

Hyundai actually were in Pakistan way before they entered India. I think it was 1987 or 1988. The problem was they could not compete with big players like Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the mid and the sub compact class. Suzuki monopolized the 1000CC class. Hyundai is still in Pakistan but not a big player. You see it is whole lot easy to sell low quality cars in India, as Indian had never seen quality cars from the world before the nineties. Toyota entered Pakistan in 1967 right after they introduced 1966 model in the US for the first time. Honda followed soon. Toyota, Honda and Nissan (datsun) were imported from Japan. Pakistani automobile customers are whole lot savvier than Indians.
Only a dumbass would like the piss! Did you rub the aftershave on your face today?

The 55 year old potty mouthed juvenile fool Hacked Penis says , : ``Pakistani automobile customers are whole lot savvier than Indians.``...

You bet !!

Pakistan`s first and only indigenously built car , the swashbucking Sitara is guaranteed to deliver maximum satisfaction to the savvy Pakistani automobile enthusiast >>


WoW!!!

#29

``Hyundai was smart.They wouldn`t piss in pak``

They are pissing allover India now!

Re: # 31

I humbly offer you this cutandpaste link to Hyundai Motor India`s model range.All these models are manufactured locally.India is also the sole manufacturing base for the Santro Xing model worldwide.This link does not include higher end vehicles imported like the Terracan and Tuscon SUV`s.

http://www.autoindex.org/maker.plt?no=1246


I will say no more.

It`s amazing how an article on Maharashtra can generate an Indo-Pak war of words!!

Netizen and others, I have no quarrel with the fact that slums are illegal. Even slumdwellers would rather live with more dignity, I`m sure. But the Govt`s responsibility is not towards the tax-paying middle class alone, it is also towards all those who fall below the tax bracket (considering it is mainly because of their votes that the Govt came to power). The argument is not so much against the demolition of slums per se, as against the Govt washing its hands off the people living in them - in fact, asking them to leave Bombay. If the Govt is serious about the Shanghaification of Bombay, then it has to deal with this problem from the bottom up, not top down. No amount of demolition will get rid of the slums - everyone knows this. The only thing that will work is creation of viable low-cost housing - workable plans for which are already in existence. And don`t believe anyone who says that there is no land available - this is a story put out by all those who have a stake in the conversion of Bombay into a Real Estate Developers` Paradise (there are bound to be many Govt fingers in that pie).

Cayenne, I cannot understand your middle class vs. poor approach. No person likes to be poor. Ask anyone who has to live in a shanty, and if he were honest, he would say that he would much prefer to pay `millions of rupees` for an apartment, if only he could afford it. And the `millions of rupees` that a middle class person pays, do not subsidise the lifestyle of the shantyman, but go into the pockets of builders and their patron politicians. A lot of it is in black, remember? Even the shantyman has to pay for his pathetic patch of filth - only he pays the local goonda (who also has his patron politician) and not the Govt. No doubt, he would be most happy to pay the Govt rather than the goonda, if he were assured of a pucca roof over his head, and the dignity that goes with it.

Re: # 32

Yeah, and look at all the ``fair tall and handsome pakistani people`` sitting in the savvy pakistani car.Hee haw.

Re: # 35

The regime of govt. handouts should and must end.Period.A regime of incentives and deferments should follow this to help those who were used to handouts adjust.We in India always underestimate ourselves, rich or poor.This is the only way out.Privatization is here to stay and let us all get used to it.If we are successful, then only those who genuinely cannot provide for themselves will be left and the rest of us can provide the basics for them through a safety net program such as Social Security in the US.All NGO`s , misplaced activists and socialists can move enmasse to calcutta or even better BANGLADESH.There will be plenty of work for them for years to come.Please let the rest of india prosper and let all classes have an equal opportunity to succeed.Let the markets rule.For more than fifty years the govt. ruled.Look where it got us.Let us give the private sector a chance.Till then let us work hard at success.

Unchecked migration to Mumbai must end.I admire the people of Chennai, who through their language restrictions have checked the population growth and migration, or kept it within limits.There is equitable power distribution and rarely any power cuts in chennai metro.The world`s largest nuclear power reactor is nearing completion in TN.I was there a couple of weeks back for three days and not a single power cut anywhere in the city.Saves us mahrashtrians right for accepting hindi as our national language.Our interests should lie with the people of the konkan and deccan regions.We are one of them.

harimou#25:

I could not see from your post where Ramesh opposed economic reform. If he tried to claim the credit for progress for the previous govt.`s action, this is what a political spokesperson is supposed to do. In any case, even the BJP does not argue that the reform process was started by it.

satyamvada#27:

``should you not factor in. how you are going to monitor
how many buckets everyone gets daily ? - will you have people standing near the
public tap counting number of buckets people will get ?``

Water and electricity boards/companies routinely use a grading system of pricing; it`s no big deal. As for free public taps, with the long lineups, nobody using those taps can carry more than a few buckets a day. At the same time, charging full price would create greater public pressue against waste; more water is wasted, at least in Delhi, because of broken pipes and leaky faucets than by people taking water for personal use from public taps.

#35

The role of goverment is to set up a policy famework for housing development. Repeal regressive laws such as the ``rent act``. Provide incentives such as higher FSI for developers interested in ``low cost housing``. Provide means for slum dwellers to form ``housing societies``, no more PWD constructed shoddy slum rehab colonies. Most Mumbai slum dwellers are not poor or lacking incentive, all they need is a good policy framework to work in.

Slum redevelopment has to be made more attractive with clear laws that will prevent harrasment by rent-seeking goverment officials and gangsters. Yes, developers and builders will make even more money from slum rehab (and that`s a good thing).

Maharastra goverment has a cut-off date (1997?) they are not liable to resettle slum`s established after this date. I can`t see how you have an objection to this policy?

A motto of reform for all ``ex-jholawalla`s`` (myself included): ``less emotion, more pragmatism``.

Re: # 35

``It`s amazing how an article on Maharashtra can generate an Indo-Pak war of words!! ``

It comes free with evey post ;)

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``Netizen and others, I have no quarrel with the fact that slums are illegal. Even slumdwellers would rather live with more dignity, I`m sure. But the Govt`s responsibility is not towards the tax-paying middle class alone, it is also towards all those who fall below the tax bracket (considering it is mainly because of their votes that the Govt came to power). The argument is not so much against the demolition of slums per se, as against the Govt washing its hands off the people living in them - in fact, asking them to leave Bombay. ``

I don`t think the GoM is asking them to leave Mumbai, they are just evicting them from the illegal lands that they have squatted on.

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``If the Govt is serious about the Shanghaification of Bombay, then it has to deal with this problem from the bottom up, not top down. No amount of demolition will get rid of the slums - everyone knows this. ``

I agree with you on this. I really don`t care much of Shanghaification but would like the city to remain manageable not an open air bathroom. I wonder why the GoM doesn`t go after the corrupt civic, police officials who are hand in glove with goondas/politicains and are responsible for this mess. If rules are followed no slum would be erected. People like Athavale who promise slums (on gov. land) to the immigrants and themselves live in posh bungalows should be hounded and put behind bars.

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``The only thing that will work is creation of viable low-cost housing - workable plans for which are already in existence. And don`t believe anyone who says that there is no land available - this is a story put out by all those who have a stake in the conversion of Bombay into a Real Estate Developers` Paradise (there are bound to be many Govt fingers in that pie). ``

Can you please elaborate on this. Who is going to provide money to construct these real estate, and once the slumdwellers are put in high rise bldg who is going to foot the maintenance bills? Would it guarantee no more immigration of poor/landless people to mumbai and no more erection of new slums (in the hope that they will also be rewarded at a later time with regularisation and/or low-cost housing).