Poverty in Megalopolis

Poverty reduction is like a mirage in India.

Especially, in cities with large population of migrants, it becomes very hard to consciously focus on poverty reduction programs, since these migrants were not planned for initially.

All major cities in India have had influx of migrants from the relatively poorer regions of the country. Mumbai, I guess, has had the maximum share of migrants from all over the country, being the centre of major economic activities. Mumbai is a melting pot of migrants, surely for the well-endowed ones as well. Due to the heavy concentration of financial institutions and large corporate headquarters in the City, it is to be expected anyway.

Economic migrants of the poorer variety ofcourse, dominate in terms of numbers. Given the strain on the land in Mumbai and the cost of real estate as a consequence, there is hardly any alternative for the poorer migrants to live, except on the roads ! Such a scenario can be seen in most places in Mumbai as one drives around, especially in the suburbs. The slums encroaching upon the Airport Authority’s land in Santacruz is stark evidence of the impact of the migration on Mumbai.

The other day I saw that police had removed the hutments of poor people living across the road from Hypercity, diagonally opposite to it. There was a clean pavement, though it was just above the dirty nulla, or stream of water with harmful effluents. I thought, Wow, these folks had the nerve to carry out such an operation !

Today, the migrants were back at exactly the same place, with all their belongings intact !!

I can only think of a failure of governance in terms of providing affordable low-cost housing to these migrants, who are necessary for the economic activities going on all around - construction, factory work, home support work, and a million other activities required to sustain the fast-growing economy - someone is needed for work which could not be done by the existing folks who are engaged at a higher level of economic engagement in society.

In a developed country, this situation partially exists, such as in America with migrant Mexican workers. In Singapore with its almost full employment, the economic imperative is different - work cannot be done by current population, and so import of talent of all kinds is required, planned and executed well by the government.

However, in India, the migration largely occurs within the country (though there are other country imports which are not checked at the borders with Bangladesh or Nepal, for example). Several states have a poorer quality of living, and a very low GDP per capita. People are unemployed, or are not able to find productive work which pays well. Their dream is, what else, “Mumbai” ! Or, “New Delhi”.

In a democratic country, it becomes difficult to stop such migration officially. In China, the government can, and does, stop migration into cities like Shanghai, at will. Brute power sometimes help. But, that would not be possible in most countries.

So, it comes finally to the government of the day to solve the problem of reducing the strain on land, transportation, food, et al, when large population of migrants needs to be catered to. The economy and society needs their services as well. A real Hobson’s Choice, I guess.

We all need to think through potential solutions for this major problem of the day.

Cheers, and Have a Good Weekend,

Vijay Srinivasan
26 April 2008
Mumbai

Higher Education Debate : INDIA

If you have followed the news media of India, you would have learnt about the intense debate going on regarding the higher education funding and admissions criteria. The Government has raised the budgetary support for education in its most recent Budget. Some of the well-known institutes, such as the Indian Institutes of Management, have raised their fees considerably to avoid taking government funds and support higher costs of operation. Doctors have been striking work protesting the perceived reduction of Post-Graduate seats available to the “open” category. And, there are many debates raging……including on TV Channels.

In this context and environment, it would be worthwhile to learn what world-class American Universities are doing - surprisingly, they have extended significantly huge support to the low-income students. I urge you to read the attached article from New York Times.

“The (Yes) Low Cost of Higher Education by David Leonhardt”

How relevant is this to the ongoing debate in India - I found it very relevant. Serious matter to think through (very) carefully in a dispassionate manner befitting policy makers.

Have a good week ahead,

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
20 April 2008
Mumbai

The Great Escape

Sounds like the “The Great Train Robbery”, eh ?

No, it is just the name of the Water Theme Park that my family visited yesterday. We took a day off to actualise the dream of getting to a water park in this summer time, and we made it finally ! Though we have been to Essel World before, it has been quite a long while.

After studying the options available, we chose The Great Escape, thinking that it sounded and looked cool from the website info’ provided. Visit “The Great Escape” and take a look for yourself !

From the location map on the site, I “intelligently” estimated that it would take around 1:30 hours to reach. But I underestimated the intelligence of two sets of folks - drivers in general, and direction-givers. The former community generally does not believe in taking advice from the car owners, or even studying the printout of the map provided. They think that they know Mumbai and its environs far better than the firangs who are inhabiting Mumbai. So, why take directions ? The latter set of “direction-givers” on the road, starting from security guards, to auto drivers, to general folks on the road who are minding their own business, take relish in displaying their “grand” knowledge of how to reach anywhere in Mumbai and its neighbourhood. They assume that anyway the drivers or the owners don’t know the way around, and so what is wrong in giving what could possibly be the right directions in their minds ?!

While I “discussed” the map with my driver for sure, he seemed to be disinterested. I mentioned some of the words from the map, like “Ghodbunder”, “Dahisar Checknaka”, et al. He beamed and said he knew the route ! We started off at 8:45 AM, and on the way happened to see the advertisement of “Suraj Water Park” in the newspaper supplement (“Suraj Water Park Thane” ). As were discussing, the driver overheard us and exclaimed that he knew that Park. We just ignored and continued our journey.

Well, we should have considered his assertion more vigourously. On the Western Expressway leading to Ahmedabad, my driver turned off at the Thane - Ghodbunder Road, towards Thane. I should have challenged him, but reaction times, so to say, were poor. We had some scenic travel along this road, which curves around hilly areas, and then finally landed up at Suraj Water Park in Thane ! Was it a surprise ?

However, as astute consumers and decision makers of repute, we instructed the driver to continue the journey towards Parol, via the Parol - Bhiwandi Road, again very intelligently “looking” at the map printout from the The Great Escape website. That was a blunder which would eventually cost us another 1:15 hours of stupid travel and quite a bit of heart-burn !

It was very obvious that the driver did not know the route. He must have checked with 6 different “direction-givers” enroute, after that point - mostly vague directions hinting at the possible right way to Parol. From Thane, we must have travelled over 40 Kms through rough terrain, villages, no-man’s land, and all kinds of roads, we almost lost hope of finding The Great Escape. It was 11:20 AM, by the time we saw an innocuous sign board not facing us - my wife asked the driver to slow down, we turned our faces and there, at last, was what we came for. We came along the wrong route, and that’s why I surmise that even the sign boards were pointing in the wrong direction of the travellers ! Amazing, isn’t it ? This place is located in what appeared to be the rural interiors of the Maharashtra State - very dry, hot location in poor surroundings with brick kilns lining the road.

However, finally we arrived, and the water park did exist !

This park does not compare favourably with Essel Water Kingdom. We noticed some safety issues in the water slides. This park also does not have a lot to spend time on - apart from the wave pool, some water slides, and pools where one can laze around. It does not have a “lazy pool” for instance, or some of the more complex slides. The entry rates included the food charges, and most people seemed to be attracted to the food - which was decent.

Clearly, there is a safety issue at The Great Escape, when the illiterate folks in charge of operating the slide, send down people without ensuring that the previous person had exited the slide. This is very dangerous, and I made it a point to seek out and complain to the Admin Manager and the Operations Manager - they took the feedback seriously and called the guys doing such mistakes down, and apologized to me ! I thought it should be the responsibility of the customers to inform the administration of such major safety problems - they might just be thinking that everything is fine till such time that a major incident happened.

Well, nothing to write further - we spent around 3.5 hours and left the park. The attendant at the exit gate was surprised to see us leaving at 3 PM, much earlier than the closing time of 6 PM.

I was pleased to discover that we took exactly 1:30 hours to reach back home, in line with my original estimate ! It goes without saying that we took the WE Highway back ! So, basic intelligence does sometime appear to work !!!

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
19th April 2008
Mumbai

Jim Corbett National Park

I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days for a retreat near the Jim Corbett National Park.

It takes 7 hours of uneven road travel to reach the Park area in the Uttaranchal State. The road from Delhi is part highway, part dusty tracks by the side - lots of dust I should say. Infrastructure cries for redemption all over India, and this area is no exception. Except I expected a better infrastructure around Delhi than in any other part of the country ! With heavy trucks, lorries, buses, cars, vans, tractors, bullock carts, and cycles (apart from the occasional pedestrians trying to cross the road risking their lives), it requires heavy concentration and ability to brake rather very quickly to manoeuvre the highway.

Nevertheless, Jim Corbett is worth a trip. Though it is rare to sight any tigers (I didn’t), or elephants, I managed to see deers and monkeys. I guess one has to spend considerable time within the forest area in order to be able to see anything more significant. There are procedures to be complied with while gaining admittance into the park. Like most publicly maintained facilities in India, there is confusion while going in - they ask a lot of questions and delay the entry while checking a series of documents, including driving licenses ! It is never smooth, coordinated, easy entry for tourists who have taken the trouble to come all the way.

However, finally one gets in on a four-wheel drive - the Maruti Gypsy. It’s a rough ride all the way, and people with back problems better be careful. The ride can’t be made smoother, there is no proper road inside - it is a dirt track all the way. The drivers are quite rough and push the vehicles to extreme performance while ensuring a rocky ride to the passengers. But, you tend to ignore all that, in the hope of seeing some wild animals.

Suddenly, the driver stops the vehicle and shuts down the ignition, and cautions all of us to be silent. We look around carefully, holding our breath. Voila, there comes a deer ! We raise the cameras, and it appears frightened. However, we manage to capture some shots……the driver now explains it would be better to go along the river stream to see the elephants, but alas, no such luck.

Here are some photos, some more in the next post :

DSC08394.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Jim Corbett National Park

DSC08370.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Road leading to Jim Corbett National Park

DSC08374.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

A poor shot of the deer…….from a moving vehicle

DSC08377.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Gypsies at the parking lot

DSC08407.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

A view of the river stream

DSC08406.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

River Stream at Jim Corbett

DSC08390.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

A dirt track in Jim Corbett - one can see the big pebbles on both sides of the track

DSC08381.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Lunch with the Tigers, anyone ?

DSC08382.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Periphery of the Park

DSC08393.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

A view of the dirt track inside the National Park

Hope you relished the pics, though nothing great. Make the Jim Corbett National Park as one of your “must-see” places.

Some of the relevant links for your further read on Jim Corbett are as follows :

“Corbett Park”

“Jim Corbett (hunter) - Wikipedia”

“Jim Corbett National Park - Spectrum Tours”

Have a great weekend

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
12 April 2008
Mumbai

White Water Rafting @ Kundalika

Today was it - the first time I ever overcame the fear of white water rafting !

A fabulous wet experience by any standard, and that too in this part of India (Maharashtra) - I had always thought that to get any white water rafting, one had to go to Rishikesh.

Unfortunately, no photo-taking was possible, so I am directing readers to the website of the organizers - “Wild River Adventures” . You can view the photo gallery on the site to visualise some of the experiences I went through today !

Reaching Kolad on the Mumbai - Goa Highway takes approximately 3 hours. There are small sign boards on to your right as you get into the Kolad village, and one can easily miss these - I asked why the signboards were not big and clear with necessary directions, and was told that big-sized signboards are hacked away for their material content ! So small ones are used, and there are atleast 3 companies with signboards pointing to the left direction.

So we turned left, and quickly crossed the railway crossing. It was a winding road leading all the way to Pune. We missed the turn to the Camp and drove for quite some distance before we located a small signboard on Wild River Adventures (WRA), which took us to their booking office. Finally got back to the Camp for the night rest……

This is a serene place with quiet surroundings that I really liked. The only thing I was worried about was the mosquito bombing threat, luckily in the rooms there were no mosquitoes, even though the organizers had provided mosquito nets inside the camping tents. The rooms were really large but simple, for a comfortable stay.

We headed for the river around 8:30 AM - it was approximately 7 to 8 Kms away. WRA guys are experts in white water rafting, rappelling, kyaking, et al. They explained the rafting procedures, especially the safety aspects, and advised us to follow orders. Then we wore our life jackets and helmets, grabbed the paddles, and headed to the rafts parked near the river bed.

Our trainer loaded all of us inside the raft - 9 of us - and asked us to paddle forward. After about 20 metres, he asked all of us to jump into the river ! I hesitated, but he gave no choice, and assured me that I would be absolutely safe. However, the fear of sinking was always there, and I was not alone ! The water appeared to be deep. Anyway, we all jumped in and after the initial screams we were all right, just floating on the water ! Climbing back up into the raft is tough, even when someone is pulling you up - one has to be quick and keep the legs away from the raft - pull the rope down and push the weight up. We all managed to get back ofcourse !

This exercise removes the water fear, though not completely. But it atleast familiarises one with the river and the surroundings. After some more paddling, we headed to the flowing river with the water gushing forth - the gates of the Mulshi Dam were opened around 30 minutes before we hit the river, so it was in full force. Going from the relatively still section of the water to the gushing river spooked some folks ofcourse ! We joined the river and almost immediately saw the rapids ! Were we astounded ?!

It was an amazing experience to go through even the smallest of the rapids. We must have gone through atleast 10 rapids of varying levels today. I exchanged my place to be at the nose of the boat to experience an even higher level of thrill, and it was worth every drop of water ! Great experience, hardly any safety issues. One has to follow orders of the trainer strictly and observe basic precautions to maintain the place on the raft ! At the calm areas of the river between the rapids one is encouraged to jump into the river and enjoy the peace of floating horizontally in a yogic pose. I did that for almost 20 minutes, and it was unbelievably calming and refreshing, to say the least, apart from the fact that you are in the middle of a flowing river 100 feet wide.

Now I am encouraged to seek even more thrill - may be I would wait till the monsoon time when 6 instead of 3 gates of the dam are opened up, and the water level is likely to be atleast 10 feet higher than what it was today. Or, may be one has to take the Rishikesh Challenge !

Strongly recommended for all except the most faint-hearted.

Have a great weekend,

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
5th April 2008
Mumbai