It is not unusual for public agencies to indulge in firefights. Constantly, all the time. So not surprising that nothing really gets fixed, for any great length of time.

This official asked for data (location) of complaints his agency usually receives. It turns out that repeat complains were originating from only around 400 locations in the entire city of Chennai. They decided to fix these or make plans for these and saw the number of complaints fall.

Same official did something even more interesting. His agency analyzed hospital data for dysentery. (Where were most cases of dysentery occurring in  Chennai?) They analysed the water quality along with the state of the pipes in those areas.

One main reason for dysentery is mixing of clean water with sewage when pipes break and leak. His agency fixed the leaks in these locations and there were supposedly not a single case of dysentery in Chennai during the past rainy season. If true, he and his agency should get some kind of public award and recognition.

Similarly, analysing the expenses and functioning of various pumping sites revealed very interesting insights. This can be used to further improve quality of delivery of services and also strengthen future tendering processes – thereby saving taxpayer resources and citizens’ headache.

There is another important point. Data when analyzed by experts or many people, especially when displayed in interesting visual ways, reveal a lot. Things that you missed earlier pop out since pics and maps reveal what your brain cannot conceive without. Also, there is a reason why the world is moving towards a more multi-stream/expertise/speciality model especially in prestigious universities.

It takes different outlooks and training in different subjects to solve complex problems. One man/woman or one team cannot do this. A very important reason to put all official data on public domain.

Put all bus, water, electricity, etc. data on public sites. Data how frequencies, finances, quality, breakdown …. and watch how others help you.

Benchmark Globally

To improve, Chennai has to learn from cities such as Paris, Tokyo, and others The mayor of chennai, M. Subramanian, recently recalled that some MPs from North India visited Chennai and were amazed by what they saw. Though heartening,  the city could not rest on its laurels. To improve, Chennai needs to compare itself with advanced cities and ask how they got there, he said.

Read more …

I was very intrigued by the note below on Jane Jacob, is her Hayekian or not. Most interesting point for me was what this would do for the poorest of poor of the world. Usually critics jump on these ideas and label them elitist – “Rich are trying to secede”.

Also check out the TED presentation. Arable land versus urban space ( Romer illustrates using light points on night map of the earth) is really cool.

Related posts:

1. Wheelchair test (3.023)
2. Not just Delhi, Madam Sheilaji! (2.957)
3. Let a hundred Hong Kong bloom (2.472)
4. Hope is the antidote to Naxalism (2.251)

Two young auto rickshaw drivers were in the queue at the Road Transport Office (RTO). They had already lost two days’ income with no end in sight for their registration nightmare. They pointed to a decrepit old man standing outside, looking dejected in hot, humid Chennai. “He has been there for two days and has come all the way from Andhra Pradesh. Officials have been giving him the run around. A rich man can afford a tout but what will that poor man do?”

One of them added, “Naxalites should take over and ‘take care’ of all these bastards.”

A chill should shoot down our collective spine. If the urban annoyed of reasonably well governed cities feel this way, what do the helpless, in badly governed, feudal lands of India feel?

As one reads Comrades: A World History of Communism, a fascinating and sometimes sarcastic account of various attempts at utopia, one question keeps popping up—Why did communism take root in some but not other parts of the world? The author, Robert Service, whose low opinion of communism is palpable, argues that communism was welcomed by people in societies that denied them basic freedoms. Unfortunately, these oppressed people found themselves living under an even more oppressive system.

Communist parties and their fellow travellers existed in practically every democratic, liberal and capitalistic society. In the 1920s and ‘30s, especially after the economic devastation in the wake of the Great Depression, it even appeared that many of these societies would go the communist way. But they didn’t.

The Communists’ misfortune was that these nations, even in the depth of economic misery, afforded their citizens basic freedoms and better governance. Even under glaring income and wealth disparities, most people could afford to be hopeful—if not them, their children would have a better life; opportunity for upward mobility existed. Hope—near and distant—acted as barrier to the growth of communist power.

Lands which denied its citizens any hope of upward mobility, justice and rule of law fell to communist revolutionaries, many of whom were motivated by visions of an egalitarian society devoid of class and the privilege of birth.

The constituency of Naxalism comprises of those devoid of justice and even the hope of progress. Most cadres come from groups like the tribals that have been traditionally and systematically abused for long. The so called Red Corridor covers areas that have not seen governance or growth worthy of a modern nation even while other parts of India practice a vibrant democracy and chalk near double digit growth.

Contrary to what  the anti-liberalisation crowd says, these are not victims of liberalisation, but are areas untouched by liberalisation. Here, decentralised government is unknown. Crony capitalism and state-directed industrialisation usurp tribal land and resources, and the rule of law, infrastructure and services that would have helped poor create wealth and a better future are non-existent.

The antidote to Naxalism, as syrupy as it may sound, is hope. Hope is no food package to be dropped from helicopters; it needs to be built through good governance at the local level. Central planning has failed the world over. The people, including and especially in remote areas must have the power and resources to script their future.

Countless crores are spent by central and state governments in the name of the poor, especially rural and tribal. This is not only wasteful, but very often, counterproductive as well. As a starting point, abolish all central government ministries that purport to work for the upliftment of the poor.

India Today (June 18th, 2007) found that abolishing, restructuring and merging about 20 central ministries—agriculture, human resources, tribal affairs, coal, rural and the like—will save the taxpayer around Rs 76,000 crores. Why not parcel this and more, say, equally to rural and tribal families and to Gram Sabhas? Let them decide where to dig canals and lay roads, how much fertiliser to buy, how, where and when to farm and so on. Growth and progress will follow.

Wealth and income transfers are realities in any society, especially democracies. No society will tolerate drastic income and wealth disparities, especially in light of mass starvation and policy driven suicides. Until self-governance and policy sanity is restored, the real issue is how transparent and efficient such transfer processes are. Are the intended recipients receiving the maximum allocated resources? Are there simple mechanisms to the redress the wrong?

Cash transfer in various forms, combined with smart cards based identification, will bring much needed efficiency and transparency to poverty mitigation programs. Which hopefully would also be the death knell of centralised planning. Even the Left has extended great support for programmes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) which has effectively become a scheme of simple cash transfers.

It is a sad irony that much of the Red Corridor is not only extremely poor, but extremely resource rich, with enough land for potential factories and advanced and efficient farming these regions are also rich in coal, uranium, bauxite and other minerals. But who owns all this wealth? No one and surely not the tribals, under whose feet much of this wealth lies.

How one divides up natural resources like oil is clearly a challenge anywhere in the world. How much should each citizen of Iraq earn from the sale of a barrel of Iraqi oil? Yet there are solutions, and these must be customised for local realities through a serious and deliberative process. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, is an attempt in this direction, albeit with loops and holes. While General Electric can own and operate nuclear reactors around the world, why should the tribals of Jaduguda be condemned to inherit solely “disease, death and environmental destruction” from its uranium mines? Currently, in the absence of clear property rights, the tribals cannot even collect and use more mundane forest products, let alone be part of the military-industrial complex.

Improvements in the overall property rights framework must be hastened. Also, the division of resources among the original owners in a democratically consensual and transparent manner must be hastened. Warriors who see the world through the prism of class alone rightly point out that caste and tradition, and not economics alone, are also causes for oppression and injustice. As an aside, this is interesting, coming from class warriors, since caste and tradition seem to have trumped class in much of India. Undoubtedly greater devolution of power to panchayats, democratically protected participation of all castes and gender in governance, monitoring by activists and human rights agencies, greater assault on caste and gender atrocities and so on have made deep dents into oppressive and unjust structures that have existed for centuries. Programs like NREGS, cash transfers and vouchers for empowering the poor in education, insurance and health are already showing signs of accelerating this much needed redistribution of power and dignity.

This brings us to the area where government institutions must focus: the rule of law. Most humans might tolerate oppression, injustice and abuse as ephemeral if convinced about the existence of legal and civilised recourse. A functioning democracy would have enough safety valves with its judicial, police and civil society structures. But these too have atrophied in much of India, especially in the Red Corridor.

The much ballyhooed reform of police and judiciary must start, and along with this the ostensibly necessary, but much abused provisions like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) must go. The very existence of provisions like this is, in a democratic society, a sign of decay of the rule of law and governance.

Finally, the Naxalites’ bluff must be called. There are two kinds of Naxalites: those who might join the democratic, parliamentary process when conditions are right or out of necessity; others constrained by ideological steel will negate current and future Constitutions, Parliaments and all organs of Indian democracy as a bourgeois confidence trick. The battle with the latter is eternal and needs to be fought with great stamina and long term vision. While empathising with their reading of conditions in much of India and the need for revolution, armed or peaceful, it would be foolish to deny or underestimate their long term objectives.

The power of ideology cannot be underestimated. Any group that pays obeisance to Marx—a pioneer in advocating violent revolution and one party dictatorship—and to Lenin, Stalin and Mao—main exhibits in the gallery of mass murderer—needs to be taken seriously. Further, the Naxalites are just one of the many groups of nihilists claiming to represent the oppressed.

But with the first group of Naxalites, the best way to prove the hollowness of their ideology and to defeat the  rebellion would be to hand over power to the rebels through a fair democratic election. Communism has failed no matter which nation tried it and under whatever banner. Let them have another chance to architect their ruins. The Red Corridor must have more democratic options. Naxalites who are willing to contest, win elections and implement their programmes must be encouraged. India is too large, too complex and too wise to fall apart, due to yet another tried and failed ideology. Call the red bluff. If history of economic policy is any guide, the elected Naxalites will fall to the well-known ‘anti-incumbency’ factor (an euphemism for the electorates’ rejection of a government that did not deliver)

The debate is not whether Indian society needs a revolution or not. That it needs. The debate is what the revolution will replace the current reality with. To hasten that revolution and what it brings, the rest of us only have very few, yet powerful, weapons like democracy, good governance and rule of law. These are too important to be left blunt in the hands of distant leaders and underdeveloped institutions. They must be sharpened.

Read more

What about the other monopoly called FCI. This wonderful creation of central planning loses thousands of tonnes of food every year to men and mice.  It is my contention that FCI feeds more criminals and rats day in and day out than hungry people. An exaggeration no doubt, but not by much.

Who will save us from the exploitation and profiteering of anachronistic monsters like FCI?

Next time you encounter the following: use thousands of features on your computer; wade through garbage and human excrement in railway stations that looks more like refugee camps; read about farmer suicide, even though zillions have been set aside by taxpayers to aid them, via subsidies and food procurement, and that tonnes and tonnes of food  disappear every year from government shops and storage, chew on the following:

Microsoft, which delivers better and better products, every year, for cheaper and cheaper prices, is relentlessly hounded and accused of being a monopoly. But railways and FCI ……….

Before you conclude otherwise, I am a big fan of Mr Lalu Prasad. He is a shrewd politician and politics, especially in a complex democracy like India, needs more Lalu Prasads. Not naive fools whose only qualifications are that they speak English well and studied in prominent Engineering colleges. Maybe even did a tour of the West and are have come back to “serve and sacrifice” for their motherland. Clueless bull!

One more contention of mine: Mr Prasad knows fully well how destructive the Railway Ministry, the monopolistic nature of railways in India and FCI are to the development of India.  He knows well that his gimmick will not make any difference whatsoever.  But the price is rising, inflation is up, elections are coming, etc. etc. And he is a shrewd politician.  Man got to do what a shrewd man got to do!

Nitin Pai, editor of Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review, promised me warm and fuzzy feelings if I contribute and get published in Pragati. Well I did get published in the November 2007 issue and I am purring like my kids’ cat from the all the warmth and fuzziness. Thanks Nitin.

For the full version please visit and download from Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review. Please subscribe to Pragati for monthly issues.

India will evolve into a confederation of city-states

FOR CONNOISSEURS of mutinies—of the noble, peaceful and yet defiant kind—very few can be as satisfying as India’s grand mutiny against British colonial rule. What began as a plea for equal treatment evolved into a full fledged mutiny demanding complete independence. Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi and other enlightened leaders the mutiny became a work in progress, attaining many dimensions.

From being just a revolt against a distant monarch and his local representatives, it took on various local entities and issues. It culminated in our independence, with Indians taking back political power, inheriting structures and institutions of democracy, rule of law and other practical tools of civilised governance. Yet we still engage with our past ruler, the British, in cordial and hopeful ways. We are enthusiastic members of global organisations even where they have a far greater say than us.

Many may be surprised, even rattled, to hear that this mutiny of our forefathers is still a work in  progress. And it is progressing defiantly though not always nobly and peacefully. Everyday headlines document the modern day mutinies raging across the land, ranging from demand for complete secession, to resisting abuse of the notion of public good, to keeping local control over who should clear the garbage. History is bound to repeat.It is ironic that after 60 years of independence, the basic nature of this mutiny has not changed much. It is still a revolt against distant monarchs—albeit democratically elected— in New Delhi and our states’ capitals and their local unelected representatives. Equally ironic is that it took us almost 50 years after independence, to pass the 74th amendment to the Constitution, acknowledging, in words if not in deeds, that decentralisation and local governance is important after all. Shamefully tardy recognition in the land of the Mahatma, champion de-centraliser and anticentraliser.

Most of our disputes, festering for ages, are the result of persistent inability of locals and their democratically elected local representatives, if any at all, to deal with them promptly and effectively. In practical terms, the system places locals at the mercy of distant rulers for most solutions. Since these rulers—state and central ministers for example—have a million and one things to do, and because even a small state has hundreds of cities, towns, villages and a myriad of issues to deal with, even the most energetic man cannot minister his flock promptly, resulting in festering wounds and growing resentments on the body politic.

Recently, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) organised a public workshop to seek advice on its draft master plan. An earlier version of the plan, long on data and clichés and short on analysis and planning, elicited howls of criticism and protest from local activists and concerned citizens. To CMDA’s credit, the workshop was an open affair and the officials seemed genuinely eager to receive help.

Yet the problems of our overly centralised society were very much obvious. The workshop was inaugurated by a State minister who was also the Chairman of the CMDA. The keynote was by the Chief Secretary for the State of Tamil Nadu. All of the representatives of the government who spoke—laying out problems, solutions and plans, trading questions and answers—were unelected bureaucrats appointed by the State government. Chennai is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, yet not one of its city councillors or the Mayor was to be seen or heard.

Now this could mean two things. Either such plans are never going to see the light of day. Which begs the question: if the city planning agency does not make plans, then who does? The state and central governments? Or the plan is indeed important and it is pre-decided that state government appointed technocrats will run the show, not the local representatives. The calibre of most of technocrats was visibly high, but not relevant, since they can never be punished or rewarded democratically, only be shunted around bureaucratically.

Take any modern city like New York, Paris or London that people flock to. It is the Mayor who is visible and accountable. It is he (or she) who loses his job when the snow is not removed on time; race riots break out; crime increases. It is his fortune that rises when city’s living condition improves. Technocrats answer to these democratically elected leaders who have their ears to the political ground. The most competent politician, who runs the most complicated city the best, gets the promotion to Chief Minister, Prime Minister or President. Many have heard of Teddy Roosevelt, Ehud Olmert and Jacques Chirac but can anyone name the chief technocrat who served under them?

India is urbanising fast. Tamil Nadu, for instance, is already around 50 percent urban. Stories of increasing urbanisation and villages without humans are globally true today. For decades locals have been kept impotent at addressing local problems promptly with adequate resources. This has created untenable villages, at a faster rate than what would have happened naturally, thereby causing mass migration of the worst kind: distress migration.

Instead of local empowerment, the rulers’ response has been to create a myriad of ministries at the centre and the states, resulting in piles of bloated departments and their ever increasing appetite for tax payers’ wealth.

Absence of rapid devolution of power to local governments will result in more of the unliveable, violent and ungovernable mega-slums that pass off as cities. Centrifugal forces in action in India, despite ideological, ethnic or religious veneers, are the result of over centralisation of power, resources and accountability. Centralisation has sucked away power and responsibility, leaving behind local vacuums for trouble makers to fill, who end up representing the genuinely resentful.

Co-option of these mutinies by the forces of good, as in the case of our independence mutiny, is a must and urgent. Resulting noble and peaceful mutinies must result in a liberal democratic framework, freeing the locals and their governments to pursue locally directed development and interests.

In practical terms this means implementing far more than what the 74th amendment envisions, in letter and in spirit. Devolution of power and decentralisation of responsibility will weigh down trouble makers and forces of good with mundane duties of local governance and leave very little energy and reason to point fingers at the centre and the state.

Wishful predictions are in order. Our coming mutinies will be noble and peaceful and they will succeed.  India will evolve into a confederation of ‘city-states’, whose members recognise the benefits of collective security and common foreign policy. City-states left alone to evolve their respective culture and economy while the central authority, strong but limited in scope and size, douses conflicts among members and prevents barriers to free flow of ideas, people and commerce. A day may come when cities of our neighbours will be tempted to join this union. Lahore, the past Paris of the east, for example, may find it beneficial to join and rediscover its lost liberal glory, rather than be bound eternally to perennial lawless and illiberal lands. That may not be repetition, but a welcome reversal of history.

I assume all this is true when it comes to city administration.  Competing claims, lobbies, unwieldy unions, lying cheating crooks, whiny public, and so on.  How do we even know when the authorities are done building safe, clean footpaths?  What does clean and safe mean anyway ?  In fact, what does footpath mean ? 

Well, why not create a simple test and get a bunch of people, who will latch on to the city administrators until the footpath passes the test.  So here is my test for footpaths.

Assume you have an old person in your family.  Grandpa, grandma, annoying old uncle. He or she is really old and is wheelchair bound.  Now the test for the quality of your city’s footpath is that you should be able to push this old person’s wheelchair, with the old person in it of course, from any point in the city to any other point in the city.  Without the old person having to get out of the wheelchair.  Without you having to carry the wheelchair with the old person in it.  Without bystanders and you having to carry …   Ahhhh… My lawyers are working on this to get the words right and loopholes free !

There is a reason for the wheelchair being part of the test.  A person who can walk can also jump over holes and pot holes.  He can get off the footpath and get on with relative ease.  A wheelchair cannot. 

If you have seen the footpaths in Chennai you will realise that even a Olympic Decathlon champ would have difficulty staying on it.  The footpaths are build at heights that only superman can climb.  Even if you climb on a footpath, it lasts only for a few feet.  Because the footpath dips downs again, a sharp fall that is, in front of every house and shop’s entrance.  All this if you are lucky and the footpath is not obstructed by parked cars, autos, shops, gates, illegal constructions of all sorts.  Crap, crap and more crap, usually literally.

Hence the wheelchair.  If the wheelchair can roll smoothly, then you can walk, run or skip on the footpath, from point A to point B.

Now as for testers….  Why not ask old people groups ?  (Yes I realise old people are no longer called old people.  They are, I suppose, differently youthed people or something like that.)  But I figured when old people can actually walk on the streets, without the fear of being mowed down by an assorted variety of vehicular manslaughterites, especially because of my patented ‘Wheelchair Test’ idea, that would be respect enough.

When a road and its footpaths are built, or so claimed by the road and footpath czars, let the elderly unleash themselves on them.  Whip out the wheelchairs and run the test.  Count the number of old people and their wheelchair pushers in the test team.  Chalk out the routes.  A to B. B to C. C to Z.  Ready, set, go!  After the trip count the number of people in the team.  If no one is missing, the team did not have to get down from the sidewalk, etc. test passed.  Else failed.  Sue government.  Take authorities to court.  Picket the city corporation.  Repeat until success.

Wouldn’t that be an inspiring sight ?  Large groups of old people and their well wishers testing their footpath.  Also, no complicated physics, chemistry or mechanical and civil engineering to tell us whether the road and the footpath actually work.

(My apologies to the old people, for any perceived slight of their physical abilities.  Many of them are healthier than so called young people.  If this is the case, the young person can sit in the wheelchair and the old person can push it.  My test is flexible.)

Jokes aside, this would come handy whether the road is being built by the government or by private companies.  This could be part of the bidding process for road building contracts.  Old people association certified.  Like ISO 9000 certified.  The point is that private groups and associations should have more say in these matters.  Old people or not, consumers should have a choice.  Roads should be built by agencies who satisfy consumers’ demand.  If government agencies cannot do this, then let the private companies do it.  Reward private companies if they deliver.  Punish them if the fail.  When it comes to many things, including roads and sidewalks, pedestrians are not treated as tax paying consumers.  This must change.