[sustran] Road to Corruption

ESG India esg at bgl.vsnl.net.in
Tue Apr 6 13:47:24 JST 2004


The enclosed article was published in The Vijaya Times, Sunday 4th
April, retitled "Roads to Corruption".  The last para was not included
for want of space.

Thought you may be interested in these views.

Leo Saldanha


Roads of Democracy
by
Leo F. Saldanha
Coordinator, Environment Support Group
 
A distinguishing feature of the British occupation of India was the
building of a wide railway network, and not roads.  The purpose was
clear: enable movement of military and goods to aid imperial
expansionist programmes. Neglect of road building was a deliberate
policy to check movement of people, their association and political
organisation. 
 
Gandhi understood the British scheme and decided to symbolically
confront it by traveling ticketless on trains, which was the main mode
of public transport then.  He encouraged other freedom fighters to do
the same.  Such actions were used to protest against the empire and also
to demonstrate resistance to the repression of demands for freedom.  The
relationship between roads and democracy has never been better
highlighted. 
 
Post independence, Governments took acute interest in developing road
networks to enable reach of services and economic transformation of the
country.  This also helped reach the concept of a nation state to
farflung areas, particularly those that were unconnected.  Today India
ranks high in the world in terms of road density at 76 kms per 100 sq.
kms. area, way above China's 11 kms.   In terms of roads per population,
too,  India fares well, with 256 kms of road length per lakh population
and the present road length is over 30 lakh kms., over 20 times what it
was during independence. 
 
Such glowing numbers apart, the popular perception of India's roads is
that they are bumpy, dusty, undependable, horrendously unsafe and
clearly not in keeping with the image of "India Shining".  Roads don't
serve the purpose they are meant for.  The best representation of this
is our national highways which   account for about 2% of the total road
length, but support over 40% of our traffic.  Whereas rural roads are
80% of the total road length but support less than 20% of traffic.  A
great proportion of the traffic now traveling on highways is farm
traffic forced there due to the poor condition of rural roads.  About
half our exisiting rural roads are unsurfaced, and thus seasonal.  Their
upgradation and upkeep would require enormous investment. 
 
A former Corporator from Mangalore described the reason for the
miserable state of our roads.  In his view, if there are four inches of
bituminous surface to be laid, then a quarter of the value would be
siphoned off by the contractor, another quarter would go to the
engineer, the third quarter to the local elected representative, and
what money is left is invested on road works.  This may sound
exaggerated, but the reality is not very different.  The lack of
institutional integrity and mechanisms to check corruptioin, was most
brutally exposed by the murder of Satyendra Dubey, a manager of a
section of the Golden Quadrilateral project, for reporting the massive
corruption and resultant poor quality of work to the Prime Minister of
India. 
 
In the recent controversial advertisements of the Central Government,
"India Shining" was most commonly represented by "world class
expressways" being built under the Golden Quadrilateral project.  In
contrast, the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana, a programme of rural
road construction that closely compares with Nehru's mammoth efforts, is
rarely flagged for attention.  A review of the expenditure for this
programme reveals that upgrading existing rural roads consumes most of
the investment leaving very little for the programme's primary
objective: that of extending road networks to 1.6 lakh unconnected
habitations of over 500 households each.  Symbolically, the high road
density developed over time has helped reach democracy to the remotest
corners of India.  Yet for the most part, Gandhi's vision of roads as
means to deepen democracy remains rather remote. 
 
Farmers in the districts of Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore realised
exactly how remote democratic participation could be for them.  Their
attempts to participate in the Statutory Public Hearings on the
controversial Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, a
proposal involving the development of an expressway and 5 cities at a
total cost of Rs. 2,600 crores to house a highly globalised and elite
community, were frustrated by the Karnataka Government which actively
obfuscated the truth.  The State also employed brute police force to
keep out many who demanded more information or disagreed with the need
for such a grandiose scheme. It seemed the Krishna Government was in no
mood to rationally consider views, and had decided to invest enormously
in an infrastructure project that benefited only the elite.  Were
similar financial and administrative resources invested in the highly
backward regions of North Karnataka, not only would have lakhs of people
benefited, but the much needed economic development would have started
flowing into the region. 
 
At no time in the past has India embarked on as ambitious a road
building exercise as that launched by the NDA government.  Rs. 50,000
crores is the outlay for four/six laning of the National Highways.  Rs.
60,000 crores is the outlay for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.
Now that we have decided to travel down this expansionist road
programme, it is important we remember that roads in India are for the
people of India. 
 
In Gandhi's world, roads represented political democracy.  In today's
India, roads represent a democracy that should ensure access to better
health care and education, and economic and social upliftment of the
wide public.
 
ENDS/860 words
19 March 2004 
 
Submitted to Vijay Times on request.



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