Let us Wish Dr Manmohan Singh

Dr Manmohan Singh has inaugurated his second term as the Prime Minister of this country with a lot expectations from all sections of the populace. By all indications, their faith is not misplaced.

Dr Manmohan was till recently pilloried as a "weak Prime Minister" a "meek supplicant to Sonia Gandhi" and a "willing puppet" in the hands of "his Masters".
Unambiguously, beyond any pale of doubt, this self-evasive, unassuming and scholarly Sardar has proved all the Cinderellas of Indian politics totally wrong.
The Prime Minister has demonstrated his inner strength and shown the doubting Thomases that he is tough without being rough, meek without being weak and aggressive without being abrasive.
In synopsis, the soft-spoken Sardar has taken all his detracting bulls by their horns. Result: DMK is shown its place. Lalu is silenced. Mulayam is sulking. Maya is cut down to size. Old haggard like Arjun is shown the doors.
Now, his attempt to project a clean and neat government should work.
However Dr Manmohan has a heavy agenda on his plate. Challenges are many and varied and what is more important is that totally independent parameters that are liable to impact our public policies are as much unpredictable as they are powerful.
People as a whole expect a clean governance, a responsive administration, a secure environ and a better quality of life that can ensure, good drinking water, a roof on the head, controlled prices which can give two square meals to everyone, affordable health care, avenues of education and access to all the tools of science and technology making the life livable.
Admittedly these are not, by any stretch of imagination, tall aspirations - but looking practically, in the current context, they are indeed tall orders.
What needs to be done is clear to all: Create job opportunities on a massive scale - both in rural areas as well as in urban centers. Every able bodied Indian must be assured of a job. Job creation will put a lot of money in the pockets of ordinary citizen. That will kick start consumption, which will kick start production, which in turn will kick start the entire economy.

The American President Franklin D Roosevelt, popularly called as FDR, did precisely this in the early forties in the US under his famous "Great Deal" initiatives. US were bleeding profusely due to the Great Depression generated by his predecessor President Herbert Hoover. There was all round depression of unprecedented dimension bordering outright panic in the US. The economy was tottering, the social fabric was getting torn, the political edifice was facing menacing challenge and the internal stability of the country became a question mark.

FDR ordered massive construction activities; roads were laid, railways were expanded, airports were constructed; waterways were cleaned and deepened. That was a turning point of America. What Industrial Revolution did to UK, what Dairy and Dairy Product did to Denmark, what Oil did to the Middle East, the Railways and Roadways did to the US.

We need to take a leaf from the others and create opportunities for every Indian to be productive force. While agro based industries, irrigation work, expansion of highways, aqua culture have the enormous potential for creation of productive jobs, care must be taken to supplement them with meaningful social infrastructure so that the benefits of development really reach the common man.
Grand infrastructure Development like connecting all the places in the country will provide a lot of employment besides pushing up cement, steel and related industries in a gargantuan way.

Building major and minor dams will result in considerable saving of water resources, expand agricultural operations and provide extensive employment for our people. Building more airports, expansion of railways and modernizing our ports will yield a lot of benefits.

Urban Development is crying need of the hour. Urban slums represent the ultimate in squalor. Poverty rules the roost here, as do prostitution. Crime is generated here as mosquitoes are. People live in unlivable shanties, eating and excreting in the same place. There is no good drinking water, except poisonous arrack, illicitly brewed and illegally sold. The central government needs to have a comprehensive and deep look into the most deplorable state of affairs, though these are essentially state subjects. Such a comprehensive plan of action will not only improve the quality of life of the most hapless people in the urban slum and give them a respectability which will bolster up their morale and self esteem, but generate enormous job opportunities embedded in the developmental activity.

Corruption is a Cancer that eats into our body politic. It eats away roughly 40 % of our total revenue. This cancerous growth needs a drastic operation.
One way is to invoke technology intervention in our governance. E Governance is the answer. It is generally known that local bodies are given enormous funds to lay roads, provide sanitation, supply drinking water, open schools and arrange for common facilities so essential for a minimum decent life.
What is verily happening is as follows: Contracts are awarded - but roads are never laid - or not laid as per specifications. But bills are passed and money is paid. The entire operation is fictitious and fraudulent. Settlement of Bills for the entire civil work must be system- generated. The terms and conditions of every work awarded together with technical specifications, time schedule and the cost must be loaded into the system. Electronic sensors using aerial satellite should capture all the features of the work done - in the case or road-laying, whether thickness ensured, extent covered, material used etc must be captured through special software. Based on the successful screening of the quality of the road, the System should give instructions to Banks to make settlement within 48 hours.

The above arrangement will ensure effective delivery of government service to the common man and totally eliminate man made mistakes and outright corruption.

Let us see another example: People make traffic violations. Traffic cops stop them. Quite often the dialogue takes place between the two and that results in some mutual understanding -- and after "give and take" the chapter is closed. Very often, the traffic cop harasses innocent citizens and "fine" them for a crime not committed. This unfair practice creates a lot of heart burning and the "proceeds" never reach the government coffer.

Electronic surveillance of all traffic violations using satellite communications will cut out police- public confrontation. Violations will electronically communicate to the offender with a clear mandate to pay the fine in the nearest Bank. Corruption goes lock, stock and barrel and with the police harassment perishes.
Elimination of corruption especially in places where common citizens are involved will bring a lot of revenue for the government and bolster up the peoples morale in the democratic set up.

Dr Manmohan is a free market economy man. He is also progressive in the sense he is sensitive to all progressive ideas. The word "progressive" is not be understood in the sense the Fellow Travelers quite often champion. He can delver the good - and he will.
Adios...