With Malaise Towards None !

Politics is DIFFICULT but supporters of Political Parties are more DIFFICULT to understand, as they tend to wrestle with even what is Obvious.

When critics questioned the degrees of Mrs Smriti Irani and Mr Modi - their die hard supporters wrote ; What is in Degrees, Skills are more important.

However, when critics started talking of rail accidents and safety issues in Railways the same supporters are now Justifying the importance of Degrees and circulating the Degrees of the Railway Minister.

Decide what is important ?.

Meanwhile one should go through the CAG Report on Indian Railways published in WIRE ; https://thewire.in/government/cag-report-on-derailments-hard-to-square-with-pmo-claims-on-prioritising-rail-safety.

Another CAG report tabled in Parliament highlighted few very important aspects of Indian Railways which bring to the fore that we are still far far behind ;

One. Indian Railways despite investing ₹ 2.5 lakh crore on track infrastructure during 2008- 19 have failed to improve on the mobility outcomes.

Two. "Mission Raftaar" introduced in 2016-17 targeted an average speed of 50 kmph for mail/express and 75 kmph for freight trains by 2021-22. The average observed speed of Mail/Express and freight trains until 2019-20 was, however, still around 50.6 Kmph and 23.6 Kmph, respectively. This implies that perhaps the money that was spent on upgrading the infrastructure has not been utilised properly and so it has failed to achieve the desired impact.

Three. Out of 478 superfast (SF) trains, the scheduled speed of 123 SF trains (26 per cent) was less than the specified speed of 55 Kmph. Indian Railways has no guaranteed delivery time for goods consignment.

Now Take a Call ; What is Important Degrees or Admnistration of Indian Railways.

Where are the Smart Cities ; No one Knows !

A collosal amount of money has been spent on the Govt’s flagship Smart Cities Mission since June 25, 2015.

The Govt said in Feb that all projects of the 22 smart cities will be completed by March 2023 , these SMART cities are Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Ranchi, Salem, Surat, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Kakinada, Pune, Vellore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai, Amaravati, Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur.

On February 6, this year Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs had told Rajya Sabha that as on January 27 this year, out of 7,804 projects worth ₹ 1,81,322 crore for which work orders have been issued in the 100 smart cities, 5,246 projects worth ₹ 98,796 crore have been completed. The central government has released ₹ 36,447 crore under the mission, of which ₹ 32,095 crore (88 per cent) has been utilised.

According to the mission guidelines, the central government will provide financial support to the extent of ₹ 48,000 crore over five years, on an average ₹ 100 crore per city per year. An equal amount on a matching basis will be contributed by the state government or urban local body.

I live in One of the so called Smart Cities mentioned above in the List and have been to few more in recent months, I did not find anything SMART with those cities. 

Now from the above following question arise;

One. Huge amount of money has been spent but have these projects made life of citizens’ better , If Not then there is something wrong with the Plan itself.

Two. Can the citizens of these cities feel that they are Living in a SMART City.

Let me explain this with an example.

I have spent my childhood in BHEL Township having a population of almost a Lakh and spread over an area of approx. 20 sq kms. These PSU townships were set up way back in late 50s - BHEL township at Bhopal, Haridwar, Tiruchirappalli, SAIL Steel plant townships at Durgapur, Bhilai etc. These townships were truly smart townships.

Each of these town ships were divided into Zones/ Sectors and each zone had its small market, its dispensary affiliated to the Main Hospital, a primary school, a maintenance office, a sports club , a community centre, play grounds for children to play and Police station. All these townships were self contained and self reliant.

Had the Govt taken a cue from these townships perhaps they could have made more Indian cities SMART and on a lesser cost.

Meanwhile, let us understand , the money spent by Govt is our money that it collects through taxes, do not forget we are being TAXED numerous times for the same money that has already been taxed once. 

What Happened to Stopping Open Defecation?.

Lastly, Can anyone tell ; How many Indian Districts have become Open Defection Free?

Astonishingly the Govt had set very ambitious goals. Govts agency PRESS INFORMATION Bureau reported that Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) was launched on 2^nd October, 2014 with the main goal to make the country Open Defecation Free (ODF) by October 02, 2019 by providing access to toilets to all the rural households.

Details of funds allocated by the Government of India under this scheem and their utilization during the last three years and the current year are as under:

This information was given by the Minister of State, Shri Prahlad Singh Patel in a written reply in Lok Sabha and he said ; All the villages have already declared themselves ODF(OPEN DEFECATION FREE).

Has this been achieved on Paper or ON Ground? Has Patel sahab ever visited Indian Villages and seen for himself?

Leave aside Villages even after spending thousands of Crores they could not make our Cities - Open Defecation - Free. 

Who will bell the cat ?

I know, some die hard supporter will shout, What can Mr Modi do, its people's responsibility.

The answer is WHO RUNS THE ADMNISTRATION. and Secondly, When you know your people Should you have spent money so carelessly in building toilets, instead you could have spent money in first building the whole SYSTEM that could support the Plan. 

For instance ; How can you maintain a toilet when there is NO WATER CONNECTION?

I Shall Not Speak !

 Lastly, Dr MMS was ridiculed for his silence but we have a situation where young women wrestlers have been protesting for last so many months of sexual harassment by the Wrestling  Federation Chief , a BJP Man and the Govt has remained silent. And we all know that the Hon’ble PM, Home Minister and even Mrs Smriti Irani are skilful Public Speakers and leave no opportunity to express their views on any issue.

But the supporters are Busy projecting young women wrestlers , victims of Sexual harassment and those supporting them as - ANTI NATIONALS. 

Just imagine where have we reached and How Deep we have sunk ourselves ?