Protest against fuel price loot must come from the citizens

Any government that is hell-bent on looting its own citizens deserves nothing but ridicule. Petrol and diesel price hike that happens every day, is a prime example of such an open loot. When administered price mechanism was removed by the UPA government, a policy which the present government follows with greater alacrity, it was said that fuel price will change according to the global crude oil prices. That is, fuel price in India will increase when global crude oil price increase and vice versa.

However today, when global crude oil prices are crashing and are at one of the lowest points in its history, fuel prices in India are increasing day by day. When the government allowed India’s state-run oil marketing companies to revise fuel prices on a daily basis, called dynamic daily pricing model, it was allowing itself to loot the public in stealth. The elevation of Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to Cabinet rank by PM Modi was a recognition for his successful implementation of this policy of open loot.

On 1 March 2014, two months before Modi government came to power, global crude oil price was $108.6 per barrel and price of petrol in Delhi was Rs. 73.16 per litre. While on 11 September 2017, global crude oil price was $54.2 per barrel and the price of petrol in Delhi was Rs. 70.30 per litre.  (Though we consider Delhi’s fuel price for comparison, it must be noted that in Delhi, fuel prices are less in comparison to a state like say, Maharashtra as the VAT imposed by Delhi state government is must lesser than that imposed by Maharashtra state government.) 

Exchange rate is also a factor that must be considered when we compare crude oil price per barrel and petrol price per litre. But there has been rather insignificant change in dollar exchange rates between the two periods - the rupee was trading at 61.76 against the US dollar on March 1, 2014; it was 63.90 on September 11, 2017.

The major factor that explains the divergence between global crude oil prices and fuel prices in India is central excise duty. Excise duty on petrol was Rs. 9.48 per litre in April 2014, which has risen to Rs. 21.48 per litre today. While the excise duty on diesel was Rs. 3.65 per litre in April 2014, it has now been increased to Rs. 17.33 per litre by Modi government. 

While we consider the share of taxes in the retail price of petrol and diesel in India, we can find that it is 55.5% and 47.3% respectively, of which the major share is central taxes, particularly excise duty.

If we compare fuel prices in India with that of other emerging nations like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc., we can find that they are much lesser than that in India. Our government imposes more taxes on the petroleum products and loots its own citizens like no other major nation in the world.

These facts essentially show that what our government does to us is nothing but open extortion. (Disclaimer: Though I invoke the term ‘extortion’, I am by no way alluding to the leader of BJP who was once charged with extortion.)

Money generated from taxes on petroleum products are used for development purposes is an argument that governments use often. But no government in the history has given statistics that show how this has been achieved. Like Krishi Kalyan cess imposed on us has not assuaged farmer distress, taxes generated from petroleum products cannot be expected to fuel welfare schemes. Particularly from a government that has consistently dragged its feet from spending more on welfare schemes like MNREGA and National Health Mission.

When a national level agitation against this fuel price loot is not forthcoming from the opposition parties, the onus for such a protest rests essentially on the citizens of India. Opposition to his open loot by the government is brimming in social media and many online groups are planning agitations on the ground as well. We must all take part in such protests and put pressure on the government to alleviate our burden by reducing the taxes it impose on petroleum products.

Don’t expect resignations, BJP doesn’t believe in accountability

During the days of Lalit Modi row, BJP’s prominent leader Rajnath Singh, the Home Minister of India, had famously said, “this is NDA, not UPA, our ministers won’t resign”. 

And if we roll back some years and reach the UPA’s time, we could recollect that one of the prime responsibilities of BJP leader Ravi Shanker Prasad then was to ask for the resignations of UPA ministers whenever some controversies arose in their names. And some minsters did resign, due to intense agitations from the opposition parties and continuous guard from the media.

Cut to the present day and you have Ministers like Mr. Singh who openly say, which should be nothing but party policy, that whatever be the allegations against any minister, no one will resign under any circumstances. 

Allegations of corruption charged by the opposition is one thing, which could be rejected as baseless accusation, but dereliction of duty, as in the case of Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar in the Dera Sacha Sauda fiasco, is a matter of serious concern, where accountability has to be fixed on the political leadership.

As was the case with the Gorakhpur tragedy (on which we will come back later), political leadership made scapegoats out of the officialdom in Haryana and absolved themselves from any blame. When the total administrative failure is so obvious for any discerning eye, when the High Court itself has come down on the government and the CM in particular, any democratically elected CM would generally be forced to resign. But that is for ordinary political parties, not for BJP, which is, in their own claim, “party with a difference.”

High Court has given a rap on the knuckles of Haryana CM Khattar and Indian PM Modi. When it came down heavily on the CM for his inability to prevent the riots, the High Court also reprimanded the PM Modi and asked whether he is the PM of BJP or that of India. However in this case one must understand that PM Modi is helpless and he can’t ask for the resignation of Mr. Khattar, for he hadn’t resigned during the Gujarat riots of 2002. When that is the case, on what moral ground would PM Modi ask for Khattar’s resignation? 

Gorakhpur tragedy is a far worse case. 70 children dying in a week, most deaths because of the unavailability of oxygen in a hospital due to non-payment of bills by the government, is a tragedy that would have warranted the resignation of the head of the government in any functioning democracy, but not in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh. 

Instead of serious introspection, the UP government at first came up with the bizarre argument that the deaths were not due to unavailability of oxygen, even when it took actions against head of the medical college, Rajiv Mishra, and also on Dr Kafeel Ahmad Khan, head of the Paediatrics ward, for not making enough oxygen available.

If the deaths of innocent children in Gorakhpur were really due to encephalitis, as the UP government claimed, then why did it take action against the aforementioned doctors? 

So it is clear that the deaths were due to lack of oxygen availability in the hospital. And the reason for the unavailability was that the government didn’t the pay the bills for the oxygen. That makes it clear that the UP government is directly responsible for the tragedy, but still no resignation of CM Adityanath or Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh. 

Speaking about accountability and resignation on moral grounds, one mustn’t forget to mention Railway minister Suresh Prabhu. Under his watch 8 major rail accidents have happened till now. After two rail accidents last week, Mr. Prabhu offered to resign on moral grounds, while PM Modi rejected his offer.

While the BJP wants to judge other parties on the basis of lofty moral grounds, it rarely applies the same standards to itself. In its alacrity to impose bigoted Sangh ideology in India using their political power, BJP has abandoned its commitment to the people of India.

Fleece the middle class, caress the corporate defaulter

Few weeks ago SBI was back in the news for all the wrong reasons. A circular that appeared on its website was the reason for all the chaos. In the said circular, SBI had announced that it will charge Rs.25 for every ATM transaction. Due to public outrage, later SBI clarified that the circular was not about savings bank account holders, but only about State Bank Buddy customers, who will be charged Rs. 25 for every ATM transaction.

Though SBI clarified later that the circular was the result of an inadvertent mistake on their part, it is quite difficult to believe it. In all probability it was done only to test the waters to see how customers would react to it. If the reaction was subdued, they would have continued with charging Rs 25 per ATM transaction, but as the reaction was rather fierce, they stepped back from the proposal.

After demonetisation the challenges that banks face are manifold. Even before the disruptive policy of demonetisation added extra pressure on the banks, they were reeling under their non-performing assets (NPAs), which mainly include bad loans of large corporate houses. Credit growth has gone down to 5.4% by 31 March 2017, which is the lowest rate in the past 60 years. This is in contrast to what advocates of note ban had predicted. Their argument was that, with note ban, banks would be flush with money and hence they will offer lower interest rates, which would catapult credit growth to magnificent levels. But that didn’t happen and because of the shock that note ban gave to the economy at large, productive activities slowed, which further reduced demand for credit.

In addition to the debilitating pressure of the NPAs, banks are also faced with the prospect of spending a lot of money as interest payments to its customers. With the note ban, most customers have put all their money in their bank accounts. Banks will have to give interest to all such customers, at a time when there are few takers for bank loans, with which banks would have gained loan interest.

Foreign credit rating agencies as well as international monetary agencies are putting a lot of pressure on the government to act and reduce NPAs of public sector banks, which they claim is affecting investor confidence in the economy of the country. Crony capitalists, who are the main defaulters of bank loans, are adding to the pressure on the government to waive off their loans. A clear pattern can be seen among the comments of the bureaucrats as well, whereby they support reducing the NPAs of the bank by waiving off loans of corporate defaulters. At the same time, they are adamant against waiving off farmers loans in the various states of the country.

In a bid to reduce their working pressure, banks like SBI are increasing all service charges that would affect the ordinary customers badly. Getting back money from corporate defaulters, thereby reducing the NPAs is not easy, particularly when the crony capitalists have great support and backing from the political class. So the only way out for the banks to reduce their financial burden is by fleecing the middle class with exorbitant increase in the service charges. 

RBI has failed to protect the customers from the rapacity of the banks. Also, there hasn’t been any significant protest from any quarters when the banks increase their service charges. The opposition parties have completely failed in organising any mass movements. In the absence of such protests, banks and the central government think that they can get away with anything. The social media has been the only saving grace as far as the objections to the fleecing practices of the banks are concerned. 

It is high time for the middle class to come together and form pressure groups to prevent the banks from making it the scapegoat for saving big corporate defaulters.  

Understand the divisive agenda behind the development facade

Some political commentators expressed great surprise at the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Yogi is known as a political rabble-rouser and as a polarising figure in Indian political scene. The poster boy of Hindutva politics, Yogi Adityanath is often considered as the leading divisive politician in the country. BJP’s selection of such a person as the head of the government in the most populous state in India raised many eyebrows, even among some of the staunchest supporters of Narendra Modi’s party.

However it must be said that anyone who is aware of the Hindutva project envisaged by the Sangh will not be surprised by the selection of Adityanath. With former Sangh pracharak Narendra Modi at the helm in the centre and with a handsome electoral win in UP for the Sangh ideology, this is the most favourable time to put Hindutva to the centre stage. This writer has written earlier about Sangh’s two-pronged strategy of gaining electoral wins. They use development facade, engineered mainly by Modi, to gain the votes of the young, aspirational class while using the Hindutva card, carried on effectively my Adityanath and his ilk, to garner the votes of those who are easily manoeuvred by communal and casteist agenda. 

The most important advantage of such a strategy is that BJP can easily avoid appealing to the minorities, who are anyways absent in BJP’s core ideology that focuses solely on Hindutva prominence or crude majoritarianism. That BJP didn’t field even a single minority candidate in the UP elections speaks volumes about this electoral strategy. When they have swept the polls with such blatant majoritarianism, it is certainly a signal that the majority people of UP wanted a Hindutva icon as their CM. So in that regard it must be accepted that the BJP has shown that they are honest to the people of UP by bringing Yogi Adityanath as the CM.

With the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the leader of the government in UP, the fringe elements of the Hindutva brigade has ceased to exist, as the fringe has now become the new mainstream. The apologists of the BJP government at the centre, including many leading journalists, actors and businessmen, who had meticulously defended the divisive comments made by the rogue elements in the party, will now have their task cut out. If the re-emergence of cow vigilantism, with increased vigour and amplified brutality, is a sign of things to come, then we are certainly looking at a bleak future. While the fringe is creating mayhem with their vigilantism, the mainstream is virtually supporting them with their increased call of bringing in vegetarianism as the uniform food habit of the nation. The covert support that the state provides to vigilante thugs is not helping the matter either. The whole project of cow vigilantism is aimed at imposing the Brahmanical view of Hinduism to the entire nation, including the Dalits, the Muslims and other minorities.

In the face of such large-scale thuggery, the silence of the media is deafening. The shameful opportunism of the media makes them crawl in front of political power. However when the history of our present times will be written, what will come for serious criticism will be the silence of the aspirational class, who are inherently liberal, but are shockingly averse to raising their voice against the attack on the constitutional values and on the concerted efforts towards destroying our social fabric. 

The facade of economic development that the present regime has erected has blinded them to the methodical erosion of all the values that this great country had kept close to its heart since independence. The liberal ethos of our nation, which helped us to focus on scientific advancement and the resultant systematic, albeit slow, upliftment of the poor, is under grave danger. We have started our hazardous journey down the slippery slope of communalism and religious bigotry. Unless we act with great alacrity, we are in danger of becoming a Hindu Pakistan, where chaos is the rule, order, an exception.

Daylight robbery of the middle class

After demonetisation banks were in the forefront of bringing back calm in the lives of the people affected by the surprise decision by Government of India. Kept out of the loop of the decision making on demonetisation, banks did all they could to bring back normalcy to the financial system of the country. Though remonetisation isn't complete, banks and bank employees were largely appreciated by the common man for their efforts. However many decisions that were taken by the bank after the demonetisation chaos subsided were purely anti-people.

In the essay Banks' daylight robbery of the middle class, this writer argues how banks' decision to put penalty on all those who can't keep minimum balance in their accounts is nothing but daylight robbery of the middle class.

No demonetisation windfall, will the government accept its failure now?

Demonetisation was introduced as a path breaking policy decision on 8 November 2016. What should have been announced by the RBI governor through a press release or a press meet was announced by the Prime Minister of India in a televised live address to the nation. Though Prime Minister Modi’s penchant for high drama is well known, a policy decision that resulted in 86% of Indian currency going out of circulation within a few hours from the announcement of the decision may well have warranted a direct message from the PM.

Since the announcement of demonetisation, the supporters of the decision were unanimous in their assumption that the government will receive a windfall gain from the decision, which it would be able to pass on the people of India. Other than big infrastructure investment, the windfall gain of the government was assumed to be used to spur demand and growth and to give tax breaks to genuine tax payers of the country. It was also believed that government will announce schemes to write off debts of farmers or will put Rs.15,000 in every Jan Dhan account. However Budget 2017 has put to rest all such assumptions of windfall gain for the government and subsequent benefits for the common man.

Even after two income disclosure schemes in this financial year, the net tax revenue of the government grew only by 17%, which is exactly the rate it grew by in the previous financial year 2015-16. The taxes on domestic petrol have increased by 152% from June 2014 to November 2016. The major share of increase in net tax collection could be accounted to this enormous increase. So it becomes clear that demonetisation had no significant influence in the growth of net tax revenue of the government.

In order to adhere to the fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP, the total expenditure of the government is projected to fall from 13.4% of GDP in 2016-17 to 12.7% of GDP in 2017-18. If there was a windfall gain for the government after demonetisation, why should the government restrict itself in revenue expenditure?

Other than curbing and bringing back black money, demonetisation was also declared to be a step taken for containing terrorism and neutralising fake currencies. Even after 8 November, we are not seeing any reduction in the number of terrorist attacks. Reports state that fake currencies, even of the newly introduced 500 rupee and 2000 rupee notes, are available in the country now. The constant shifting of the demonetisation goal posts by the government has now resulted in a new target - cashless economy.

Initially, marketing demonetisation as war against black money had seen most citizens of the country blindly supporting the decision. The government was able to project those against demonetisation as worshippers of black money. But as demonetisation chaos spread to the streets, people started to understand what a stupid economic decision it was. We can see now that in the election campaign trail in UP, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, no BJP leader is speaking about demonetisation. Any mention of demonetisation, the leaders believe, will put the common man against the party.

From the silence of RBI about the amount of money that has come back to the system after demonetisation, we can safely assume that almost all of 15.44 lakh crore of demonetised money has come back. So where is the windfall gain for the government? Are we to believe that all the difficulties we faced since demonetisation were the result of the stupidity of a group of men in the government? It is high time we hold the government responsible for such irrationality.

Uri attacks: How can Pakistan be given a befitting reply

The eerie similarity between the Pathankot attacks and the recent Uri attacks by militants is hard to miss. One of the significant things that needs to be noted is the fact that we haven’t learnt any lessons from the Pathankot attacks. Moreover the government also made the ludicrous mistake of allowing Pakistani investigators to come and probe the crime scene, only to be informed by them later that they found no evidence to incriminate terror elements from Pakistan. But let’s keep that issue aside for the time being, as we are confronted with more serious issues. 

We cannot allow militants from Pakistan, with the blessing of the establishment, to run amok in our country by killing our jawans and civilians. We must give them a befitting reply and must do everything in our powers to isolate Pakistan in the world stage. What all options do we genuinely have?

We have much to be thankful for as it is not the jingoistic blabbering on prime time TV that forms the basis of policy making during times of crisis. If the participants of prime time television discussion had their way, they will immediately send the army to our borders and would declare a war against our nuclear-armed rogue neighbour, Pakistan. However as sane strategic analysts would know, war against Pakistan is not an option. 

Unlike in the past, in the present day, world is more connected than ever before and any conflict in any part of the world has geopolitical implications to every other region. Pakistan army would be more than happy to engage in a war with India, not because their army is any stronger than India’s, but because they know that in such a situation their all-weather mate China would make their presence felt in the conflict and would not waste a minute to raise the Kashmir issue and internationalise it – what precisely Pakistan wants. India would not desire such a situation as it is against India’s long time stand that Kashmir issue is India’s internal problem.

Now that a full-fledged war against Pakistan is out of question, what other options do we have to teach Pakistan a lesson? Can our army go all out for a surgical strike against the militants inside Pakistan’s boundary as US Navy Seals did at Abbottabad to neutralise Osama bin Laden? We did a similar operation in Myanmar recently under the NDA government (about which the sanghis were gung-ho in social media for many days). However many strategic analysts are of the opinion that it is going to be difficult for two reasons. One, our intelligence agencies are not sure about the exact location of the militants’ training centres or hideouts in Pakistan. Two, more importantly, it is easier to do a surgical strike inside the territory of a friendly country than one inside an enemy country. Myanmar may not have any issue with Indian troops entering their territory for a surgical strike, but Pakistan will not be a mute spectator and its reaction may trigger a full-fledged war in the sub-continent.

While in opposition our present Prime Minister had many creative ideas of providing befitting reply to Pakistan’s aggressive intents. During his election rallies his abusive denunciation of Pakistan had given goose bumps to his followers and fans. But now, when confronted with real issues, he appears to be clueless about what to do. When war mongering is not a viable alternative, as a Prime Minister, one must resort to other effective policy options, including diplomatic and economic means. Analysts are of the opinion that he has many such alternatives available with him if he chooses to utilise them.

As an initial step India can downgrade or withdraw “Most Favoured Nation” status it has accorded to Pakistan. The status given to Pakistan, in accordance with international trade practices and WTO regime, gives them low trade tariff and high import quota vis-a-vis its trade with India. Though India gave them the MFN status in 1996, Pakistan hasn’t returned the favour till now. In view of the Uri attacks we must immediately snatch away the favour from the Pakistanis.

In the aftermath of the Uri attacks, India had summoned Pakistan High Commissioner yesterday and conveyed to him India’s outrage on the attacks that killed 18 army jawans. We need to further escalate our diplomatic indignation by calling back our High Commissioner from Pakistan and asking Pakistan High Commissioner to go back to Pakistan.

India has a potent force in its hands to compel Pakistan to mend its inimical behaviour of exporting terrorism to India. Our nation needs to abrogate the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, which gives Pakistan undue advantage of using water flowing from the six rivers of the Indus water system. When Pakistan is in the habit of reneging from many bilateral agreements with India, including the Simla agreement, it can’t selectively demand India’s compliance with bilateral treaties. India’s diplomatic mission should tie compliance to Indus water treaty with Pakistan’s efforts to stop cross border terrorism emerging from their land. If India backs away from the treaty and stops sharing water with Pakistan, then it would negatively affect industrial and agricultural production in Pakistan.

We must also resort to various economic blockade of Pakistan and above all should make it unequivocally clear that we are not ready for bilateral talks till terrorism emanating from Pakistan stops completely. It had always been the policy of India that terror and talks won’t go hand in hand. But in his over enthusiasm to be seen as a statesman of impeccable quality Narendra Modi made amends in that long held policy and went to meet and talk with Pakistani PM whenever he got opportunity.

The present Indian government appears to be lacking in a coherent and robust Pakistan policy. It seems to be a confused lot, unable to come up with a consistent strategy when confronted with a strategic problem. Its Pakistan policy is a mess, always reactive and thoughtless. Narendra Modi’s credibility is at risk and unless he quickly finds a logical solution to this quandary, his standing in the eyes of his countrymen will take a serious hit.

Image credit: The Hindu

What cricket can teach us about attitude and guts

After many months, Candid Minds is back into action. Please read this writer's essay "What cricket can teach us about attitude and guts" in Calpine Blog, the Official Blog of Calpine Group.

Kanpur loss: India needs to make some hard decisions

You need to chase down 304 in an ODI, your opening batsman makes a 150 and still you lose then it is time for some serious introspection on your game plan and strategy. In the first ODI of the Gandhi-Mandela series at Kanpur, India was on the brink of a victory, but still lost by 5 runs. There could be many reasons for a loss, but when one of them is poor team selection, then questions are raised on the captain and the team management. The Kanpur loss makes a case for such an analysis.

Rahane has no place in Indian ODI team: Ajinkya Rahane is one of the most talented batsmen in India today. Time and again he has shown his worth in the Indian test team. With such brilliant show of talent in the test arena and with some scintillating batting performance for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, Rahane made it impossible for the selectors to ignore him in the Indian ODI side. However as the Kanpur ODI loss shows Rahane’s inclusion in the playing eleven creates a lot of problems for the line up. If he is not playing as an opener, which is improbable as long as the right hand-left hand combination of Rohit Sharma-Shikar Dhawan plays well, accommodating Rahane could cause imbalance to the team. If he is made to play at No.3 then you need to move down Virat Kohli from that number, which is undesirable owing to Kohli’s brilliant performance over the years at that number. At the same time if Rahane is moved further down, he may have to bat in the death overs, where he may have to start hitting from the first ball itself, which a player of his style may find difficult to adopt. Before the start of the Kanpur match, Dhoni had also hinted at the possibility of not considering Rahane in the playing eleven.

Kohli at No.3: Virat Kohli has the highest average while chasing. At Hobart against Sri Lanka in 2012, at Nagpur against Australia in 2013 and at many other successful Indian chases we have seen the No.3 batsman taking his game a notch higher. While Kohli has such a good record at that position, it is silly to remove him from that position in order to accommodate Rahane. In the match at Kanpur one could also see how disturbed Kohli appeared when he was not sent in to bat at No.3. During the season of 2002, Indian had experimented similarly with the batting position of Sachin Tendulkar whereby he was removed from the opening position and was made to bat at No.4. The strategy was reverted after a short span as no particular benefit had come to the team from such a move.

Dhoni at No.4: As Shiamak Unwalla argues in his article in Cricket Country, Dhoni is no longer the finisher he was in the past. It is quite visible nowadays that Dhoni’s finishing abilities are on the decline, as seen in the Kanpur ODI. However it is would be foolish to assume that his days as a batsman are over. Again coming back to the example of Sachin Tendulkar, we have seen that in the latter part of his career, the legend adopted a new style of batting, quite different from the dashing style he had had in the former years of his career. Similarly Dhoni’s position now in the team would be more of the anchor that teams need in the middle overs. Dhoni himself has shown his interest to bat at No.4, from where he can control the pace of the game. He is one of those batsmen who is good at finding the gaps and making singles and doubles, a skill much needed in the middle overs of an ODI.

Binny’s place untenable: It is a shame that India’s quest for an all-rounder ended with Stuart Binny, who can at best be described as mediocre. One can hardly fail to notice the fact that Roger Binny’s position as a national selector when his son Stuart is in the probable list is a matter of conflict of interest. And when you consider junior Binny’s record in the international matches he has played so far, you cannot help but think that he is in the Indian team only because his father is a selector. If he is the bowling all-rounder then he should at least be able to economically bowl his full quota of 10 overs, if not taking lot of wickets. If he is the batting all-rounder, he should be able to play a match winning innings with the bat. But as of now he hasn’t shown any particular talent in either of the department. It is high time India move on and find an all-rounder who has the abilities to become a match winner.

Dhoni has always been known as a person who adapts well with the changing circumstances. He also has the services of Ravi Shastri, often considered a walking example of practical wisdom, as the Director of the team. They both need to come together and find solutions to the problems so that India could turn the tide and get back to winning ways.

Commuting woes of Infoparkians

They say that the corporate life of a techie is a bumpy ride. Deadlines, client expectations, performance appraisals, office politics, backstabbing and the likes make it a very difficult proposition altogether. Education institutions of our day have been following a practice of giving training to the students to help them prepare for this difficult ride of corporate life. By following such a salutary practice, Infopark Kochi seems to have embarked on a similar mission – of preparing employee mentally to face the bumpy corporate ride. For that they have meticulously prepared approach roads to Infopark that give the employees of Infopark, the Infoparkians, a bumpy ride, quite literally, during their daily commute to their offices. 

If you are relatively new to Infopark and its immediate neighbourhood, you could only watch with envy the skill with which Infoparkians ride and drive their vehicles through the Infopark approach roads besmirched with potholes of all sizes and variants. The deftness with which they negotiate those potholes, though often jumping into them, but emerging out unscathed, is some sight to behold. An Infoparkian’s commute to Infopark is no less perilous than a soldier’s patrolling the frontiers of our nation, both facing similar threat to life, though with dissimilar probability of occurrence. Those who have laughed at the foolishness of driving tests in Kerala – through ‘8’ shaped track for two wheelers and ‘H’ shaped track for four wheelers – are now marvelling at the long-sightedness of those wise men while they travel through these Infopark approach roads. If not for that well practised pyrotechnics how we would have traversed these bumpy roads?

The Kakkanad-Edachira road to Infopark is so much in shambles that if you tell a person that once there had been a well-laid road there, he/she would find it almost impossible to believe that. The road has been deteriorating for so many months now that it is a grave crime that the authorities haven’t done anything to restore the road. To make matters worse, recently two deep pits have been dug out on that road, with concrete slabs on top of them, thereby raising their height by at least by 5-6 inches above the residual road. These two pits have made sure that vehicles are unable to pass from both sides simultaneously, thereby causing terrible traffic blocks. For what purpose those pits are dug, God only knows.

By the stroke of luck, if somehow you reach The Carnival building (formerly Leela building) after that arduous journey through the Kakkanad-Edachira road, a new challenge awaits you. The Infopark-Brahmapuram road has been awaiting beautification and the laying of 4 lane road for quite some time. The process of tarring the road was started some two months back, but the work is not complete till now, resulting in lot of dust particles floating around in the air. Infoparkians who have the misfortune of walking on that road are in grave danger of contacting lung diseases. To add up to the chaos in that road, you have illegal car parking on both sides of the road. As there are no enough space for car parking in the Carnival building, employees working in that building are forced to park their vehicles on the road. The whole affair shows the terrible absence of proper planning.

After getting so much troubled by commuting through such terrible road if you decide to change your track to office and make use of the Express Way to reach Infopark, you will be faced with a more serious threat. If at Kakkanad-Edachira there is only some probability of getting killed, journey through Express Way has in reality taken some lives in the recent past. It was only a few days back that two lives were lost in an accident at Express Way. Accidents have become so much of a routine affair that the district administration has taken special attention to find solutions for this menace, after many complaints from the citizens.

All in all, daily commuting to Infopark has become a matter of life and death for Infoparkians. It is a shame that the Thrikkakara municipality, under which the Infopark comes, is not taking adequate care in making life any easy for them. Professional tax deducted from the salaries of these Infopark employees accrue to the coffers of Thrikkakara municipality and still they are unwilling to spend money to build good roads, to do maintenance works and to create better traffic system. Employees at Infopark are not organised and hence district administration and municipality tend to disregard their grievances. However if things continue in this fashion Inoparkians would be forced to organise themselves and agitate against the authorities. We have seen how the workers of Munnar organised without the banner of any political party and succeeded in gaining their rights. Infoparkians could well follow suit.

Picture Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle