Jun 11
Inflation, Infrastructure, etc.
News channels and papers are full of news regarding the rather high inflation currently prevailing in India. Clearly, 8.24% is a little too much for India’s common men to handle.
True, that the government can do very little about the rising fuel costs and the steeply rising number of vehicles on the road. The government seems to lesser hopes of curbing inflation, especially after the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices. Fuel is heavily subsidized. Subsidization is paid using the tax-payers money. This means that the burden of high fuel prices hits us someway or the other.
India’s economy seems to be on a slow-down. Suddenly India Inc. seems to be shying away from the optimistic attitude shown at the markets last year. The Sensex has been steadily losing points, while the rupee has been weakening at a rather quick pace.
Various parties conducted bandhs, strikes and rasta rokos all over the nation, in protest of the fuel-price hike. Such mindless acts by politicians not only disrupt normal life for the common man, but also make it difficult for them. Also, if a city like Hyderabad is under a bandh, businesses lose millions of rupees each day, and the government loses lakhs to crores of rupees in taxes and other revenues. Acts like these are clearly done only to gain political mileage. But, any sensible person would only be aggravated by such inconveniences. It was rather ironic, when a ruling party initiated a strike in its own state.
On the other hand, are our age-old, creaking, fuel-guzzling roadways and highways ‘connecting’ various parts of the country. Some of the so called national and state highways are being ‘upgraded’ to four lanes ! Thats wonderful - you might exclaim. But thats barely enough to carry vehicle population that has been growing faster than the movement of papers for road-projects from one govt. office to another. Many of the National Highway Projects initiated by various governments are yet to be implemented. Moreover, with such vehicular growth, today’s highways quickly become tomorrow’s clog-ways.
Fast urban connectivity ensures faster movement of man to and from commercial districts. This helps develop suburban areas, and towns surrounding cities.
Speedy rural connectivity helps quick transfer of farmer’s produce to industry and markets. But this is still a dream in modern-India. Many rural roads non-exist, and where they do, they are mere 1 to 1-1/2 lanes wide; roads barely enough for two trucks to pass comfortably. Then we have cows and buffaloes, tractors, cyclists and many more reasons for traffic to slow down. Fresh fruits and vegetables can start spoiling fast, and each minute lost to traffic is loads of stock lost on countless trucks all over the nation.
What has infrastructure got to do with inflation? - you might wonder. Let me explain. If 10kgs of a vegetable get spoilt on a truck during transit due to traffic delay, it means end-consumers have 10kgs less to eat. When there is more demand for a product than there is supply, prices are bound to increase.
And why did I use the term fuel-guzzling infrastructure? Each minute wasted in non-moving, or slow traffic is thousands of liters of fuel lost all over the nation. More fuel means more import, which means more subsidy, which means crores of monetary loss for the nation. In turn - more burden on the tax-payer.
Railways are no better when it comes to handling goods. Existing rail-networks are congested enough for passenger traffic. Indian railways is having a tough time handling the extra-load of carrying goods along the existing lines. The recent proposal by Shri. Laloo Prasad Yadav of laying a third rail-line, though immensely useful, might just be a little too late.
What this country now needs is a network of super-highways, elevated at populated places to avoid congestion and bottlenecks, with atleast 4-6 lanes criss-crossing India’s vast expanses, connecting important cities and towns, and high-capacity, well maintained roadways connecting rural India to its markets. Projects like these, would no doubt need investments of thousands of crores of rupees, which definitely means more burden on the already heavily burdened middle-class. But, I’m sure people would be more than happy to help turn India into a truly Modern-day India.
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