Legacy guards vs radical rockets, and desire for the world best

There can be two types of regimes.

One is how our present central Indian government is. Such government more or less just guards the legacy. Means, there’s no major change, no new practices in action aggressively, and almost nothing in mission-mode efficiently.

The other one is radical government, that almost whole urban China is witnessing at present(and also just witnessed in recent past). Such regime continuously and efficiently works for major change. It works like a ‘betterment rocket’.

While the ‘guarding regime’ follows the people, the ‘rocket regime’ leads the people.

While the guarding regime works slowly, softly and conventionally, the rocket regime works fast, in mission mode, and in path-breaking manner.

It is widely believed that, because India is democracy, any government elected for five years would not be able to work in radical manner. The government after all, would wish to be re-elected, and therefore would not take people out of their comfort zone for bringing the far-sighted change. In India, it is also argued that five years is very short duration for bringing a major change, and therefore any regime would not bet on bringing a major change. It is also rightly believed that in India, almost every radical step would invite litigation, community protest, political protest, bureaucratic hurdle, and adverse media campaign. And such factors would not allow radical change to happen speedily and efficiently.

But then how to bring a radical change? After all no one denies that we need change.

We the people of Gujarat elected BJP to power in our civic bodies this time(2010), and five years back(2005), and before that(1995), even before that(1990) and even even before that(1987).

While there’s remarkable cosmetic as well as core improvement(including some radical improvements) achieved so far in last several years, there are few grey things, that haven’t yet changed. And only way to change them is radical approach in vision as well as in process.

When BJP is now reelected to power with great majority, when BJP is also in power in the state, when bureaucracy is in full control, when NGOites and socialists are few and limited to courts, when people believe more in Narendra Modi’s words rather than the stories in the media, here is a proper chance for administration to work in radical manner to overcome some long pending, and conventional issues.

Should we list the conventional issues here that the city of Ahmedabad faces? Let’s go through some speedily.

It starts with roads, that always go bad to worst after every monsoon, that host cows in day, and dogs in night, the roads that are chaotic risky and accident prone thanks to indiscipline traffic, the roads that are occupied by illegal hawkers, the roads that are used as parking slot thanks to the buildings that don’t have parking and instead are having illegal shops, the roads that become almost like a river in rain, the roads that are deserted in summer afternoon due to lacking of adequate green cover, the roads that don’t have aesthetic sculptors and well-designed landmarks.

If Gujarat is the richest state of India, its commercial capital should not have even a single slum pocket. Presently there are dozens. Socialists will challenge this in court, but the slums should be removed, and the slum dwellers should be resettled.

There’s a huge area that has come up illegally around Narol-Naroda highway in Ahmedabad. A belt that hosts illegal constructions in kilometers, where now thousands of people are living. Once an illegal building comes up, be sure that it is followed by illegal gutter connection, illegal water connection, and series of illegal things that fuels corruption and chaos. Spread of this illegal, unplanned, corruption prone city should stop. The existing illegal Ahmedabad should be divided in fully planned sectors on paper, and the plan on paper should be executed on the ground.

Technology should be employed more. While Civic centres set up is welcome step in this regard, there should be a civic helpline, and even SMS technology can be used for betterment of services. If there can be a 108 ambulance service for health, why not similar services for other purposes too?

There’s a tradition of undermining the Municipal Corporation school system. This is highly unfortunate, because good human resource is crucial part of the living city. If school children in AMC schools are taught properly, the would not build mandir or dargah on footpath in future, they would obey traffic rules, they would maintain proper hygiene. If you teach them technical skills(say mobile repairing or computer repairing) at secondary education level, they will not come out as burden on society and will not seek job, but will be capable to live on their own, and perhaps they will be capable enough to provide jobs to other.

Most of the civic projects nowadays complete in delayed manner. More you take time to complete the project, more the budget you need to spend. There’s a river bridge in Ahmedabad which was to be completed five years back, but it is still uncompleted. It projects are completed in pre-decided time-frame successfully in China, are we a backward race? What’s wrong with our system. There should be strong act and mechanism to deal with this.

While there can be a list of hundreds of such suggestions for sure, the basic point is:Radical initiatives, and more importantly a radical process. While Sabarmati Riverfront, BRTS, Kankaria Lake Front are radical projects(radical for our environment, common abroad), the process is still conventional, and therefore all these project are (or were) delayed.

There should be a desire that whatever we would do, we would do it the world best.Or in other words, whatever is the world best, should be here in this city, and not less than that(like why our ‘Pinjar khana’ type smelly cramp old fashioned Kankaria zoo shouldn’t be even better than the Singapore zoo?).