Economic Highlights
New Delhi, 8 May, 2017
Swachh Bharat
WIDER CONCEPT NOT CLEANLINESS
By Shivaji Sarkar
India is one of the fastest growing
markets. Low data tariffs are pushing smart TVs. The Asian Development Bank has
predicted higher 7.2 to 7.6 per cent growth. This is all good news amid the
spiraling sensex, which crossed the 30,000 mark. Well, many say that the stock
market is overheated, stocks over valued and one needs to invest with caution.
Gradually, the Indian economy is having resilience. Despite
large and almost Rs 12 lakh crore NPAs of public sector and big private banks,
it needs to do away with impediments. ADB President Takehiko Naka finds India on a
better plain with GST and new bankruptcy law but he softly says it has to go
beyond China
and wants a further smoothening process. The recent International Monetary Fund
is equally jubilant but sees that India has yet to come up with some
more steps. It is, of course, a never ending process.
India has become more business friendly
with many steps undertaken but its untamed high cost of private education is a major
problem. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan of
Prime Minister Modi has given a unique awareness for cleanliness. But except the
New Delhi Municipal Corporation in the National Capital Region (NCR) none others
have really got the honours to be clean in a latest survey.
The survey carried out by the Quality Council of India did
spot assessment of 17,500 locations in 434 cities. It sadly found that all
townships around NCR are not clean, neither Ghaziabad nor Noida nor Gurugram. They scored
the lowest scores! Incidentally, Modi’s constituency Varanasi is the lone city from Uttar Pradesh to figure in
the top 100 cleanest cities followed by Aligarh
at a distant 145th rank and Jhansi
at 166th rank. Gonda in UP was adjudged the dirtiest city in the country and
was ranked 434th in the list. UP, the country’s biggest State, has 25 cities in
the bottom of the list. Meerut, near Delhi and in NCR, is the
fifth dirtiest city.
The Centre allocated Rs 20,000 crore in the 2017 Budget for
the mission but considering the population, volume of garbage, required effort
and manpower, this is simply not adequate. The figure is much higher than
previous years but a country that has not cared for the cleanliness for decades,
needs more funds, which are not easy to find in resource-hit country.
Though international agencies avoid direct comment on the
sensitive issue these do reckon it for overall business destination, but weighs
against it. Are there ways to solve it? Even in dirtiest Gonda, there are
localities which stand in contrast. To say that things are too bad is not a solution.
The non-clean surroundings affect mood, movement and generation of business and
other related activities.
While clean roads are reckoned in, bad roads are not talked
about. In the NCR, there is culture of digging roads, even the arterial ones,
only after a road is constructed – an age-old problem. The Swachh Bharat mission has to take note of it. Unless the roads are
smooth, without potholes and dug up areas, which are far too common, the
mission’s success will remain limited. Roads and their maintenance are keys to
the mission. It is just not the sanitary staff or availability of water that
cleans up the roads and surroundings.
Swachh Bharat has to include the city and rural roads,
lanes, walkways as the foundation to achieve the goals. Road planning, signals
and easy movements are also part of the mission. Slow roads as it is all over
in NCR and many other places across the county are the biggest impediments for
early success.
So is expensive education. The culture of high-end schools
is impoverishing many parents. Some pay fees which is almost equal to ones’
earnings. It also affects productivity and quality of education. The nation has
yet not been able to find a replacement for this expensive system. An
affordable, that certainly means inexpensive, schooling would change the
economic scenario.
It is no secret that foreign investors loathe coming to India with
their families as they feel it would affect their children’s education.
Expecting them to be in a position to pay the high exorbitant fees is not only unethical,
it is impractical too. The country is in a limbo when it comes to freeing education
from the clutches of high-end exploiters.
No less is the problem of so-called private super specialty
hospitals. The Government has launched programmes to bring down the prices of
stents and other medical aid. But somewhere the nation has not been able solve
the problem of health care that has become too expensive and unaffordable. The
culture of health insurance does not suit even small population. The Government
estimates 57 crore people are eligible for health insurance. Of them, the total
insured are not more than 5 crore. Better and easier health care is being
mulled but accessing it is not easy.
India’s rapid growth has been accompanied by increasing spatial
disparities within. The country’s megacities have continued to grow, fed by a
steady stream of migrants from the countryside. The spatial evolution of India has
continued to favour districts with high levels of employment density. This is
especially the case in services. The evidence in manufacturing is more mixed.
In the services sector, agglomeration forces still dominate dispersion forces
in high-density areas. In other words, these high-density clusters of economic
activity continue to be India’s
engines of growth.
This is
a problem too. Since activities are high in these areas, migration is soaring leading
to further congestion. Though the areas remain centre of activity, these become
less attractive to visitors. These also have to be decongested in a planned
manner. It is easier said than done as the cost involved is too high. A
solution, however, has to be worked out.
Swachh Bharat thus is a wider concept than what
the nation has perceived so far. It is just not cleaning the cities. The
concept is wedded to having a better environment in every sphere of life. The
target is just not the individual but a holistic system that could give fillip
to the economy and lead to overall development of the nation.
‘Make in India’,
self sufficiency, global supremacy, good health and environ are all linked up. India’s
development can become faster and all-inclusive with a little care, which the present
political dispensation in the eyes of the people is capable of. – INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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