January 21, 2006

The Plenary

AICC is holding its three day long national level plenary in Hyderabad this year and guess what the whole city has been occupied literally by the AICC delegates numbering to almost 15000.
With not a single hotel(all stars), guest house or even the university hostel left with a vacancy, congress is proving its political hold, and the incumbency just trying to make its part more blatant, has left no stone unturned to do its own bit.

The roads have been widened, with proper street lights, shining dividers, and an exorbitant use of traffic police force, the state government has done all the possible pomp and show it could manage out of the public funds. Good for us anyhow , the roads are here to stay atleast !!

My previous assumptions were slammed when it finally became conspicuous that all this was being done, not out of government's philanthropic efforts to rejuvenate the whole city, but rather with an intention of prepossessing itself in front of all those big shots of congress party, who would be gracing the city with their benign presence.

But seriously the whole issue is that why does a government need such a reason, which going by public opinion is not even a reason in the first place, to initiate the whole process of refurbishment and developement. For that matter in fact even in most of the parts of the country one can expect to get the roads reconditioned only if one of the ministers has to pass through it or they can expect a seamless electricity supply if the ministers are holding a session in their city for one or more days.

Most of the developmental activities at the municipal level in India need such a polictical incentive to begin. And once started, these so called developmental activities like a cindrella run end up tamely, without the general public even getting the benefit of it due to them. Citizens are no more a reason for the development and definitely not a cause for it. A normal person would never stand up, protesting or rebelling on the pretext of under developed localities in the city, unhygenic open air garbage dumps or whatever, and so in a way it's good that these activities are taken up and executed for reasons such as these political sessions.

Definitely it leaves a commendable legacy for the beaurocracy to have changed the whole map of the city in a short duration, but it did cause a hell lot of trouble to each and everyone of us, who were there to witness and pay the price of this development. People had their houses bulldozed, on the sides of road, without a prior notice for the expansion of the road, the traffic became so clumsy and jam packed, leading to wastage of both time and fuel, because there were no alternatives routes provided or I should say left to move on. The over enthusiastic spree of development made it all the more difficult even for the normal proceedings. The point is that it could have been done in a more planned and phased manner, rather in such a haste and eagerness.

But then that'is the quitessential of how it all goes in here , in our country called India where still most of the well built, far-sighted, and the most useful of the infrastructure continues to be from the pre-independence era. Nothing's better and fitting to end with this quote -

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to
teenage boys.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its like this, prior to somebody's visit your spruce up your home. To make the things look better but may not be the same as usual. You just dont expect any complement for that but you get it "keep it up, you have kept ur home well". same is with congress or anybody for that matter.

Kabira said...

I think indian politics is just the case where ppl like rajshekhar reddy can go to ne extent to prove the loyalty to u know who and when TDP and other complain about it, they not only ignored but also responded very badly. we together have to pay for it one day. Luckily we got couple of rooms in Maridian for our delegates.
Saurabh